The attorney for Nima Momeni, the 38-year-old IT consultant accused of killing Cash App founder Bob Lee, offered a glimpse of her defense strategy when her client pleaded not guilty at San Francisco’s Hall of Justice on Thursday.
Paula Canny spoke with reporters immediately after the arraignment. “My defense is it’s a combination of an accident and self-defense. Absolutely,” Canny, a criminal defense attorney based in Burlingame, said. “… There was no premeditation deliberation. Absolutely not.”
Declining to answer specific questions about how the stabbing was an accident, Canny said that the focus of this case should not be on who did it but on what happened.
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins spoke immediately after Canny made her remarks. “We believe that we have the murderer of Mr. Lee and that’s Mr. Momeni,” Jenkins said. “There’s no question in our minds that we charged the correct person.”
“We believe that this was an intentional murder,” she added.
Khazar Elyassnia, center, arrives for the arraignment of Nima Momeni, her brother, at the Hall of Justice in San Francisco, Thursday, May 18, 2023. Momeni has been charged with murder in the death of Bob Lee.
Godofredo A. Vásquez/APMomeni is accused of using a kitchen knife to stab Lee three times in San Francisco’s quiet Rincon Hill neighborhood early in the morning of April 4. He was arrested nine days later, based on surveillance video and testimony from a friend of Lee’s, prosecutors said. The friend said Momeni was partying with Lee and Momeni’s sister, Khazar Elyassnia, the day before the stabbing, according to charging papers. Momeni later confronted Lee about “whether his sister was doing drugs or anything inappropriate,” the friend told the prosecution.
Prosecutors say Momeni and Lee were both at Elyassnia’s apartment in the Millennium Tower, later in the evening, and surveillance footage showed them leaving together and driving off in Momeni’s car just before 2 a.m. the next day, shortly before the stabbing. Additional video footage from the evening shows Lee stumbling after he was stabbed and trying to flag down a car.
Momeni’s Thursday arraignment lasted less than an hour in a courtroom packed with family members of both the deceased and the suspect. Lee’s ex-wife, Krista Lee, and Momeni’s sister were both in court.
After Canny entered a not guilty plea for her client, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Victor Hwang turned to the defense’s request to release Momeni from custody. The prosecution argued that Momeni should continue to be detained because the evidence suggests he intentionally killed Lee and anyone who has committed murder is a safety risk to the community.
“The defendant drove the victim in the opposite direction of his hotel to what can only be described as a secluded area and stabbed him three times and then fled,” alleged assistant district attorney Omid Talai.
Talai pointed to a kitchen knife that Momeni allegedly took from his sister’s apartment as evidence that proves Momeni’s guilt. He said Momeni’s DNA was on the handle and Lee’s on the blade “that was covered in blood.”
Talai also explained the link prosecutors believe they found between the murder weapon and Momeni: “It was a kitchen knife, with a unique brand, that unique brand just so happens to be the same brand of knives that Momeni’s sister has in her Millennium Tower apartment.”
The prosecution called Momeni a flight risk because he is not a U.S. citizen and could flee the country.
In her argument against the prosecution’s allegations, Canny discredited the DNA findings and said Momeni’s DNA was on the knife because he was “the one who threw the knife over to make sure that no one had access to it.”
Of Canny’s comments, Jenkins said, “Those are defense arguments that are often made. I’m not going to retry the case to the media or in the public. Those are facts that will be fleshed out during the preliminary hearing. … Our interpretation is that Mr. Momeni’s DNA is on the handle of that knife.”
Canny also said that phone records, which she said haven’t been released, will shed more light on what happened.
“The phone records will make clear what Mr. Lee and Mr. Momeni had been discussing at that time,” she said. “I think the phone records will show that Mr. Lee had called for an Uber. The white car in that video is the Uber that showed up because they were arguing.”
It’s not clear which car Canny was referring to, but the San Francisco Standard shared video footage showing Bob Lee approaching a white car with flashing lights shortly after he was stabbed. Lee walks up to the car and lifts his shirt; the car drives away, the news site reported.
Hwang ruled on Thursday to keep Momeni in jail and said it was due to the safety risk to the community and not the flight risk.
Canny and Talai are set to appear in court May 19 to set a date for the next hearing.
"strategy" - Google News
May 19, 2023 at 05:10AM
https://ift.tt/GaifK7k
Defense strategy emerges in Bob Lee murder case - SFGATE
"strategy" - Google News
https://ift.tt/JH2E47A
https://ift.tt/m2szUng
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Defense strategy emerges in Bob Lee murder case - SFGATE"
Post a Comment