As accused murderer Nima Momeni goes on trial next month, lawyers discuss witness testimony

Only three weeks have passed since one of the most high-profile murder trials in recent history in San Francisco, that of Nima Momeni for the April 2023 murder of tech entrepreneur Bob Lee. And at a hearing Friday morning, prosecutors and defense attorneys appeared to be arguing over the list of witnesses planned.

After their request for a change of venue failed, Nima Momeni's defense attorneys appear to be pursuing a different strategy: They are trying to conceal the names of the defense witnesses.

It seems inevitable that Momeni's sister Khazar Momeni, also known by her married name Khazar Elyassnia, will be among the witnesses called, as she is central to the so far understood motive in the case. However, as Mission Local reports from court today, the prosecution and defense appear to be playing games about who will call her – and thus who will be allowed to cross-examine her. Neither team has yet put her on the witness list.

This is strange, but it is clearly a matter of strategy. According to Mission Local, prosecutor Omid Talai said in court on Friday that Khazar “is a key, somewhat empathetic witness to the events of that night, whom the defense has shared with the press and whom they plan to call as a witness in the trial.” [And] If that's the case, now is the time to say something. Actually, it was last week.”

And a lawyer for Nima Momeni, Saam Zangeneh, seemed to dismiss this, pointing to the infamous text message from Momeni's sister that police found on Bob Lee's phone. “If they want to leave that piece of evidence unexplained, that's fine with me,” Zangeneh said, according to Mission Local.

The text, as most of us probably remember, went to Lee's phone around the time he was brutally stabbed a few blocks from Khazar Momeni's apartment in the Millennium Tower. Lee and Nima Momeni had just left the apartment after some sort of late night powwow, and Khazar wrote, “I just wanted to make sure you were OK because I know Nima hit you veeeeeery hard. And thank you for being such a classy man and handling this with class. I love you selfish motherfuckers.”

We now know from pre-trial police evidence releases that Khazar Momeni, who was married at the time, met Lee with a female friend at an apartment gathering at 1550 Mission Street, a luxury apartment tower, the afternoon before the murder. Momeni and Lee apparently had a romantic history together, but Lee had most recently been living in Miami and was back in town on business.

As the story goes – and again, none of this has been testified in court yet, but comes from witness statements that have been made public – Momeni's friend says she woke up in the bedroom of the apartment owned by a known drug dealer and found “Khazar crying and wearing only a bikini” and she thought they had been given date rape drops or something of the sort. Momeni called her brother to pick her up or meet her and this is said to have sparked the subsequent events of the evening. There was also an allegation that Nima Momeni threatened to kill the drug dealer, whose name was Jeremy.

The Momeni siblings, who were in Khazar's apartment, eventually (allegedly) called Lee, who was staying at a nearby hotel, and asked him to come over. He came around midnight that night. Then Lee and Nima Momeni were seen on surveillance video riding an elevator together and leaving in Momeni's BMW about two hours later, around 2 a.m. Within about 20 minutes, Lee was stabbed. According to investigators, a kitchen knife was missing from Khazar's apartment, and a bloody knife was later found near a fence at the base of the Bay Bridge, near where the stabbing allegedly took place.

The defense could try to portray this as a case of self-defense or something else. It's unclear. According to Mission Local, prosecutors' complaints on Friday also include a short list of expert witnesses whose testimony was kept very vague. They are retired SFPD Sergeant Steven Pomatto and medical examiner Dr. John Marraccini.

There is also the big question of whether Nima Momeni will testify in his own defense. Defense lawyers have told the press that they intend to call him to the witness box, but they have become more cautious about doing so.

Today, by the way, was Momeni's 40th birthday and, as Mission Local reports, his mother was in the courtroom with a birthday sign and cake, which was handed out to people, although Momeni himself was not allowed to have one.

The trial of Nima Momeni will begin on September 16, unless postponed again.

All previous coverage of the Bob Lee murder case on SFist.