San Francisco prosecutors made opening statements Monday in connection with the killing the trial Of a tech consultant accused of stabbing Cash App founder Bob Lee to death, it provides a timeline of the events leading up to the death and the defendant’s attempts to cover up what he did.
Lee’s death at the age of 43 – after staggering for help on an abandoned street in downtown San Francisco – shocked. technology communityand fellow executives and engineers paid tribute to his generosity and brilliance. Lee was chief product officer at cryptocurrency platform MobileCoin at the time of his death. He was the father of two children.
Prosecutors say Nima Momeni, 40, he organized the April 4 attack Lee befriended after an argument over the younger Khazar sister. They say Momeni took a knife from a separate unit in his sister’s apartment, took Lee to a secluded spot and stabbed him three times, then fled.
“She stabbed him in the heart and left him to die,” said Omid Talai, Assistant District Attorney, “Our victim was stabbed repeatedly, once in the chest, once in the hip and literally one through the heart. Robert Lee. Known as Bob.
Defense lawyers ok noand they say Lee, a lot of drugsMomeni attacked him. They plan to make an opening statement after lunch.
“Our theory is that Bob had the knife and Nima acted in self-defense,” attorney Saam Zangeneh told The Associated Press last week.
He said his client is eager to tell his side, but they have not decided whether Momeni will testify in his own defense. Momeni, who lives in nearby Emeryville, California, was arrested days after Lee died at a San Francisco hospital.
On Monday, Momeni sat with his lawyers, wearing a dark suit.
His mother, who he has been stable during the hearings, he was only in court on Monday morning. On the other side of the court sat members of Lee’s family, including his ex-wife, father and brother.
Talai, the assistant district attorney, said jurors will hear from a friend of Lee’s who was with him and Momeni’s sister the day before Lee was stabbed.
The friend will testify that Momeni grilled Lee over the phone that night about his sister, drugs and “undressing girls,” acting like an “overprotective, wannabe tough guy,” while Lee was soft-spoken and happy, Talai said.
Surveillance video from Lee’s last night shows him entering the Millennium Tower in the posh downtown area, where Momeni’s sister lives with her husband, a famous San Francisco plastic surgeon.
Talai said jurors will watch video of Lee and Momeni leaving the building after 2 a.m. and driving off together in Momeni’s car. Another video shows the two men getting out of their car in a secluded area near the Bay Bridge, after which Momeni stabs Lee three times, throwing the knife from his sister’s kitchen and speeding away.
Talai said the prosecution will share text messages in which Momeni tells her sister the next day that she doesn’t know what happened to Lee that night.
The lawyer said video recorded by a San Francisco police detective before Momeni’s arrest shows him reproducing the three stabbing motions outside his previous lawyer’s office, but there is no re-enactment of the knife fight that his lawyers said Lee used earlier.
Police recovered a knife with a 4-inch (10-centimeter) blade from the secluded area where Lee was stabbed. Prosecutors said tests showed Momeni’s DNA on the gun handle and Lee’s DNA on the bloody knife. But the defense said the police should have done it he tried the handle for fingerprints, ie Lee’s.
Lee was found around 2:30 a.m. in San Francisco’s Rincon Hill neighborhood, home to tech offices and condominiums but little early morning activity.
He called 911 as he was reeling, bleeding and calling for help, Talai said.
Family members of Momeni and Lee declined to comment Monday.
Momeni, who has pleaded not guilty, faces up to 26 years in prison if convicted.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Alexandra Gordon told jurors the trial could last until mid-December.
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