• Laura X, a prolific 85-year-old women’s rights activist and organizer in Berkeley who’s credited with getting spousal rape banned in California, lost all of her money to a Ponzi scheme while creating a million-page women’s history archive, and her friends have launched a couple fundraisers to help her get back on her feet. [Berkeleyside]
• A 66-year-old nanny in SF’s Diamond Heights was detained Friday morning by ICE agents in an unmarked car, and a judge ordered her release ten hours later, largely due to the work of immigration advocates. [Mission Local]
• Gay and lesbian couples and activists commemorated the 22nd anniversary of “the Winter of Love” at City Hall Friday, marking the landmark month in 2004 when then-mayor Gavin Newsom issued same-sex marriage licenses before the state Supreme Court later invalidated them — four years prior to the legalization of same-sex marriage federally in 2008. [KRON4]

• A woman whose car got stuck on the railroad tracks in Emeryville early Saturday morning narrowly managed to escape the vehicle before an oncoming train struck it, causing it to catch fire. [Bay Area News Group]
• The first in a series of storms is expected to hit Northern and Central California Sunday night, bringing moderate to heavy rain, followed by a colder storm Tuesday and yet another storm system Thursday. [Chronicle]

Image: Stockton Street during Chinatown's Flower Market Fair; Leanne Maxwell/SFist

• A big rig fire caused a major traffic nightmare near the MacArthur Maze today. The fire began around 2 pm on I-80 in Emeryville, and was soon extinguished, but all westbound lanes of I-80 going toward the Bay Bridge were temporarily blocked for around two hours. [KTVU]

• A Santa Clara man reportedly suffered broken ribs and more after getting attacked by an angry mob of bicyclists who blamed him for a collision with an e-bike. It's the latest in a string of incidents involving hundred of bicyclists doing an illegal "rideout." [ABC 7]
• Patrick O'Riordan, a 26-year veteran of the SF Department of Building Inspection, is retiring in March after six years as the department's director — having seen it through the post-corruption-probe years. [Chronicle]

National:

• Some key House conservatives who were ready to hold out on voting for the current spending bill have, naturally, bowed to President Trump and this very brief partial government shutdown is likely to be over very quickly. [CNN]
• Trump has reportedly dropped his demand for a $200 million cash penalty payment from Harvard to the federal government, which Harvard has been pushing back on. [New York Times]
• And what's this? The Clintons have agreed to in-person depositions on the Epstein Files. [CNN]

Video:

• This account on YouTube just features remastered and colorized old film reels, and here's one of San Francisco streets in the 1920s. At the 1:30 mark, it switches to footage from the waterfront of boats in the Bay.

Since Home Depot parking lots have become magnets for ICE arrests and deportations, a couple hundred protesters hit the Emeryville Home Depot Tuesday night to pressure the retailer to push back more against ICE.

There's more to the East Bay hamlet of Emeryville than an Ikea and a food court, and Emeryville actually has a pretty strong protest scene. Recall how the town gained leftie credibility in 2018, when a billboard-hacking collective altered a waste-removal company billboard so it read “We Make Kids Disappear - ICE.”

And so it was again Tuesday night, as KGO reports that a group of more than 200 anti-ICE protesters stormed an Emeryville Home Depot and Target store (which have adjacent parking lots) as part of their demonstrations against the escalating ICE violence in Minneapolis. The protest of Home Depot is tied to the enormous spike in Home Depot parking lot raids seeking to arrest day laborers, a hallmark of the Trump 2.0 administration.

As seen in the videos below, the protests did not start at Home Depot. They slowly gathered steam at various outdoor locations in Emeryville and made their way into the Home Depot. But here's one video that captures the unusual scene of a protest inside Home Depot.

The protesters are demanding that Home Depot do more to restrict ICE operations on their properties, that they train staff to handle interactions with ICE agents, and post more information about Fourth Amendment protections.

But Home Depot corporate insists they have nothing to do with the ICE raids, and their hands are tied.

“We are not coordinating with ICE or Border Patrol, and we’re not involved in the operations,” Home Depot manager of corporate communications George Lane recently told the LA Times. “We aren’t notified that immigration enforcement activities are going to happen, and often, we don’t know operations have taken place until they’re over.”

The Emeryville Target store, for their part, was apparently a "target” because the company gave the Trump inauguration $1 million and rolled back DEI policies and Pride Month observances at the Trump administration’s behest.

As the E’ville Eye notes, Tuesday night’s protests were planned and coordinated, and the retailers were given a heads-up. The protests happened without incident, and the protesters wrapped up at 9 pm as they were scheduled to.

Related: Yes, ICE Says Their Agents Will Be All Over the Place at the Super Bowl In Santa Clara [SFist]

Image: Margaret Stretch via Facebook

Great news for Emeryville and people who like to dine with views of the bay, as a Benihana is coming to that shuttered Emeryville Chevy's space on the waterfront that's been closed for more than a year and a half.  

That Chevy’s Fresh Mex on the San Francisco Bay waterfront in Emeryville was not unlike the famed Taco Bell Cantina in Pacifica — a mid-range (at best) generic chain restaurant location that transcended into a cult-hit destination because of its remarkable surrounding waterfront scenery. And while I would not normally mourn the loss of a Chevy’s Fresh Mex, it was legit sad when the the Emeryville waterfront Chevy's closed permanently in April 2024. Because dammit, there ought to be a restaurant at that location!

And so again there will be. The San Francisco Business Times reports that Benihana will open a location at the former Emeryville Chevy’s. There is no target opening date for the popular Japanese chain opening at Emeryville’s Powell Street dock, but I think most of us would agree that a Benihana is a vastly better fast-casual restaurant than Chevy’s, so the announcement is very welcome to hear.

As we noted earlier this week, there will be ten new Benihana restaurants opening in the Bay Area in the next couple of years. But we had no information about any of the new locations. The SF Business Times report did identify some, though only two: the waterfront Emeryville location, and another in San Jose at the Almaden Plaza shopping center, in a spot that used to be a Red Lobster.

Yes, we know there is a Benihana in San Francisco at Post and Laguna streets. But the new Emeryville Benihana will feature incomparable waterfront views like the nearby, still extant Trader Vic's, plus the Benihana chain’s newly revamped interiors.

And Benihana’s revamp has been a hit, particularly at their new San Mateo location that opened earlier this year. According to the Business Times, “CEO Emanuel Hilario said the Benihana that opened in March at San Mateo's Bridgepointe Shopping Center was the top-performing opening in the chain's history."

Related: That Waterfront Chevys In Emeryville Is Closing Permanently on April 16 [SFist]
Image: Chevys Fresh Mex via Yelp

One person died in a collision on the eastbound side of I-80 in Emeryville Sunday afternoon, which led to lane closures and a significant traffic backup.

The collision occurred around 2:40 pm Sunday just west of the Powell Street exit in Emeryville. CHP later posted an alert saying that lanes 1, 2, and 3 were blocked as a result of the crash.

As CHP told KTVU, the collision involved four vehicles: a Honda VT motorcycle, a Toyota Prius, a Tesla model S, and a Subaru Crosstrek.

Reportedly, the drivers of the three cars all remained on the scene and cooperated with officers, and the rider of the motorcycle died in the crash.

The eastbound lanes remained closed for about two hours before the crash scene was cleared, per KTVU.

CHP says that neither drugs nor alcohol appeared to be factors in the crash.

• South Bay high schools are updating policies to manage AI use, aiming to prevent cheating while encouraging responsible, ethical use as a learning tool. Teachers are adapting by combining traditional teaching methods with AI detection and support. [Mercury News]
• A San Francisco-based company, Wildtype, has received FDA approval to produce plant-based salmon, offering a sustainable alternative amid California’s ongoing salmon population decline. The founders hope their cell-cultivated salmon, now served in select restaurants, can help ease pressure on wild fisheries and support future seafood demand. [KPIX]

• A homeless San Francisco man was permanently blinded in one eye after a firework exploded in his face on the Fourth of July; his family is raising funds to help cover his medical care, housing, and basic needs. [Chronicle]
• Ford is recalling over 850,000 vehicles in the US due to a fuel pump defect that could cause engines to stall while driving, with a fix still in development. [Associated Press]
• KVHS 90.5 FM, a long-running Concord radio station, is set to return to the air after the Contra Costa County Office of Education bought it for $1 and pledged to revive its student training mission while keeping classic rock and news programming alive. [Chronicle]
• Oakland native and NFL player Marshawn Lynch’s Fam 1st Foundation and Jordan Brand teamed up to open new basketball court in West Oakland, supporting underserved youth with gear and community programs. [NBC Bay Area]

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• Former Emeryville mayor John Bauters has joined the Fox reality competition show The Snake, where he’s using his political skills to outwit other contestants in a $100,000 game of deception — despite one rival declaring, “You look like you sell vapes.” [Chronicle]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Move over, IKEA! Emeryville’s most visited new destination may become a just-announced $1 billion Sutter Health medical center, as the Berkeley area was soon to lose its last remaining full-service hospital.

There has been anxiety brewing in the East Bay’s Berkeley-Emeryville-Albany area, because that area is slated to lose its last full-service hospital when the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center was scheduled to close by the year 2030. That hospital's operator Sutter Health deemed that building seismically unsound, but Berkeley officials have been sounding the alarm saying the closure would render that area a “hospital desert.”

They are not sounding those alarms anymore. The Chronicle reports that Sutter Health has just announced a new $1 billion “Sutter Emeryville Campus” in Emeryville, the city that is immediately to the south of Berkeley. Sutter Health said in a Wednesday press release that the new facility would be a combined “acute care medical center, primary and specialty care clinics, destination advanced care centers, urgent care facilities and ambulatory surgery centers.”  

“Our Emeryville campus project represents one of the most significant investments we’re making across our system over the next decade and is part of our broader vision to meet the community’s growing demand for expanded access to our services across the East Bay footprint,” Sutter Health president and CEO Warner Thomas said in the same press release.

The main new medical center would go into the big vacant brown patch in the image above. Two other adjacent existing buildings at 5555 Hollis Street and 5300 Chiron Way would be repurposed into outpatient service facilities.

To put this into perspective for casual Emeryville visitors, the new facility will be less than a mile north of the famed Emeryville IKEA, or about a half-mile south of the Emeryville Public Market food court.

But Berkeley officials are still quite pleased with the location. “I am excited that Sutter Health is continuing its commitment to healthcare access for the East Bay region with this new medical center,” former Berkeley mayor and current East Bay state Senator Jesse Arreguín said in the press release. “Our community has long advocated for expanded healthcare services and this new facility in Emeryville is a testament to that collective effort. I look forward to continuing our partnership with Sutter Health to ensure that East Bay residents receive the high-quality emergency and primary care they need and deserve.”

Okay yes, this is the same Sutter Health whose 2020 price-gouging scandal landed then-Supervisor Hillary Ronen on a 60 Minutes segment. That scandal resulted in a $575 settlement ruling against the healthcare giant.

Of course, these medical facilities are years away from being completed, with patients first arriving in 2028, and full construction not expected to be completed until 2033.

Related: Sutter Health, Other Bay Area Healthcare Systems Purchase Special Freezers For Storing Pfizer's COVID Vaccine [SFist]

Images via Sutter Health

Literally every remote public commenter at last Tuesday's Emeryville City Council meeting was a racist troll, presenting a test for one of the few Bay Area cities that still allows remote public comment.

It’s become regrettably common that racist trolls have often invaded the public comment component of cities’ public government meetings during the meetings on Zoom era, leading many cities like San Francisco to end remote/call-in public comment. But even with only in-person public comment, some cities are still seeing the racists show up to comment in person.

Other cities, like the East Bay city of Emeryville, do still allow remote public comment. Though Emeryville adopted a policy in April 2023 that they would simply cut off any commenter whose remarks could be deemed as harassment or hate speech. They’ve never had to employ that policy, until last Tuesday night, when the Bay Area News Group reports that Emeryville Mayor Courtney Welch had to cut off every public commenter for bigoted remarks.

We are not going to embed video of the meeting, though it is available online (and its first hour and 20 minutes is just dead air, as the council is in closed session.)  But once the meeting gets around to public comment, all five commenters were trolls whose slurs drew the hook of the cut-off policy.

The first calls himself “Bill Schehner,” and seems perhaps arguably legitimate at first, though it seems his pro-Palestine remarks might veer into outright antisemitism (they did). He calls for “disavowing any support for the terroristic nation of Israel, an illegitimate state stolen from Palestinian land,” but they cut him off when he says something about “complete abolition.” The next commenter starts with “I agree with what the last person said,” and then attempts to explain how Jewish “religious books” encourage pedophilia, and he is then cut off. After that, someone who identifies herself as “Ursula” begins complaining about trans women, and quickly turns her bit into using the f-word slur (and I don’t mean “fuck”) and the n-word.

Mayor Welch cut this off immediately, and seemed ready with a prepared speech. “Speakers shall not use threatening, profane or abusive language which disrupts, disturbs or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of a city council successor agency, management of Emeryville Services Authority or related meeting,” she said. “Statements or conduct that is hostile, intimidating, oppressive or abusive is per se disruptive to a meeting and will not be tolerated. I hope everyone online heard that. You will be removed if you violate that policy.”

Back to public comment. The next (and final) speaker uses the n-word and an antisemitic slur in the very first sentence, and was cut off. Needless to say, none of these comments had anything to do with the items on that evening’s agenda.

I would understand if these callers were kids like Bart Simpson who just wanted to say “IP Freely” and get a laugh out of it. But these callers were all adults, with nothing better to do with their lives that make racist comments over the telephone, and Mayor Welch acknowledges that this is harassment of city workers who are required to be present for the meeting’s proceedings and broadcast.

“We were all working as a team to make sure we’re protecting staff and the public from having to be subjected to this type of behavior,” Welch told the News Group after the meeting. “If you cross the line you will be removed. You are not free to make harmful speech and make the workplace for our staff hostile.”

Related: Racists Have Been ‘Zoombombing’ Public Meetings Across US, and SF's Board of Supervisors May End Remote Commenting Entirely [SFist]

Screenshot: EmeryvilleCA via Youtube

The rather unique waterfront Chevys Fresh Mex along the Emeryville Marina has announced its permanent closure, so if you’re a Chevys fan, you’ve got just six more weeks to go enjoy its fajitas and Bay views.

San Francisco’s last remaining Chevys was at 201 Third Street, and it closed back in 2015, after the slow death of other SF Chevys locations on Van Ness Avenue, at Embarcadero Center, and at Stonestown Mall. The remaining Bay Area outposts of the declining sit-down Mexican franchise were lately best known for flouting COVID-19 orders and staying open when they weren’t supposed to.

But now Chevys is in the Bay Area news cycle again. The SF Business Times reports that the waterfront Chevys in Emeryville is closing permanently, and their last day in business will be Tuesday, April 16.

The announcement comes from Chevys parent company Xperience Restaurant Group, which said that this particular Chevys location at 1890 Powell Street in Emeryville will close on April 16, and then the 62 employees of the restaurant would be let go the following week. There was no mention of transfer opportunities to other Chevys locations.

That Emeryville Chevys opened in 1999, but the restaurant building itself dates back to 1973. According to the Business Times’ search of property records, the building is 13,500 square feet.

And interestingly, the Business Times points out there are “no currently active listings” attempting to find a new tenant for the property. That could mean a new tenant is already lined up, or it could mean the property’s owner, listed as King Bor Lee, has another use like a housing development in mind.

As mentioned above, there are still a few more Chevys remaining in the Bay Area, in South San Francisco, Union City, Santa Rosa, Vallejo, and Fairfield.  

Related: SF Loses Its Last Chevy's [SFist]

Image: Chevys Fresh Mex via Yelp

Another viral retail-theft video was making the rounds earlier this week, following a brazen Monday morning robbery caught on camera at the Apple Store on Bay Street in Emeryville.

The video, which shows a masked suspect ripping about 50 iPhones free of their security cables on several display tables at the store, was being used to denigrate Oakland and the lack of policing there, though Bay Street is, in fact, in Emeryville.

And the video also finishes with the suspect walking out the front door to a waiting vehicle, going past a parked Emeryville Police Department cruiser, prompting much outcry on X and elsewhere about police doing nothing.

Well, Emeryville police have now done something, and the suspect seen in the video is now in custody at Santa Rita Jail, they say. And, Emeryville police say that no officers were in the area at the time of the Monday incident — the cruiser was just parked there, for some reason.

As KPIX reports, the suspect, identified as 22-year-old Tyler Mims of Berkeley, was one of three people arrested Wednesday following another robbery at the Apple Store on Fourth Street in Berkeley earlier that day.

Mims is being held on suspicion of three counts of conspiracy, three counts of burglary, three counts of grand theft, and three counts of organized retail theft. The iPhones from the Monday haul alone, police say, were valued at $49,230.

Details about the other two suspects were not made public, possibly because they are juveniles.

The arrests were conducted by Emeryville police officers, along with officers from the Berkeley PD and the CHP.

This Bay Street Apple Store has been a recent favorite target of thieves, apparently. Police said there have been four grand thefts at the store since January 19.

These arrest come amid a week in which Governor Gavin Newsom has deployed 120 CHP officers to Alameda County to aid in fighting crime in Oakland and elsewhere.

On Thursday, Attorney General Rob Bonta and Newsom announced the deployment of a small army of states attorneys to the county as well, in order to help investigate and prosecute crime.

"The East Bay is my home, and I'm committed to ensuring that the people of Oakland can live and work in a safe community," Bonta said in a statement. "The California Department of Justice has legal and law enforcement expertise to bring to bear as we work collaboratively to bring bad actors to justice."

The Bay Street Emeryville mall was the scene of a large-scale teenage donnybrook starting late Sunday afternoon and lasting well into the evening, with a gunshot fired, and one juvenile stabbed and hospitalized.

There was big time unrest at the Bay Street mall in Emeryville Sunday afternoon, as one large disturbance at around 4:30 in the afternoon begat multiple large brawls involving hundreds of teens, according to the Bay Area News Group. A gunshot was fired just before 6 p.m., and one teen was stabbed sometime before 7 p.m., in a series of large fights that kept reprising for a few hours. Some TikTok video from one teen on the scene has been posted online.

@iiam_wisss #mongomerybrawl #charlidamelio #chairs #dogs #bayarea #shooting #shooter #bays #emeryville #teenagers ♬ original sound - 🫀

This may all sound familiar to East Bay residents. The same Bay Street shopping center saw massive teen brawls on two consecutive weekends in September 2020. And just like in those brawls, Sunday’s rough-and-tumble required Emeryville police to call in Oakland and Berkeley police to help quell the uprisings.

Per an Emeryville Police Department report, the four hours of mall melees started when they received a 4:30 p.m. call regarding “50 young adults inside [a] store causing a disturbance.” KTVU’s Betty Yu adds that “the call to congregate was put out on social media.” While police cleared that store pretty quickly, the troubles were only just beginning.

“At about 5:15 p.m., while patrolling the area, officers observed that another group of about 100 young adults arrived at the [mall],” the police report continues. “Over the next 30 minutes, an additional 100-150 more young adults showed up at the mall.  At about 5:40 pm, the first of several fights were reported near the courtyard area of the mall.”

One teen eyewitness told KTVU it was "people going around pepper-spraying people. There was, like, people throwing chairs." Police say a single gunshot was heard just before 6 p.m., but identified no victims or suspects in that incident.

But KTVU’s full report notes that one juvenile was stabbed, as police discovered around 7 p.m. That individual was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries.

@iiam_wisss #bayarea #shooting #shooter #emeryville #bayarea #bays #teenagers #ghettø #lord ♬ The Ghetto - Reality Tv City

NBC Bay Area notes that one juvenile was arrested, though the charges were not announced. That station also adds that the mall’s movie theater had to be evacuated as the situation escalated over the evening. But according to police reports,  “By 8:30 p.m., most of the crowds had left the area.”

Anyone with information on these incidents is asked to contact the Emeryville Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Section at (510) 593-3700 or email acassianos@emeryville.org.

Related: Teen Mobs Have Been Doing Battle at Emeryville's Bay Street For Two Weekends Running [SFist]

Image: iiam_wisss via TikTok

The victim is in stable condition, but four male suspects are still at large after fleeing in a Hyundai sedan after an attempted robbery at the San Pablo Avenue Bank of America in Emeryville.

A trip to the ATM Sunday afternoon went badly for two people in Emeryville, one of whom was shot and hospitalized. The Bay Area News Group reports that two people were approached by a group of four suspects intending to rob them Sunday afternoon, and that one of the victims was shot.  

The victim's name has not been released, and the four suspects are still at large.

NBC Bay Area also has surveillance pictures of at least one suspect, as well as the getaway car. Police describe the vehicle as four-door door Hyundai sedan with an “unknown plate,” and having “front end damage and aftermarket black rims.”

The incident happened at 12:39 p.m. Sunday afternoon, and the four suspects approached the two victims and demanded money.

According to the Emeryville Police Department, “the victim was stable and transported to a local hospital.”

If you have any information on this incident, you’re asked to call the Emeryville Police Department Criminal Investigations Section at (510) 596-3700 and reference case 2307-1144.

Related: Police Arrest San Francisco Man in Connection with Two Armed Bank Robberies in South San Francisco [SFist]

Image: Bank of America Financial Center via Yelp

One of the last vestiges of Emeryville's former, saucier era when it was dubbed the "Rottenest City on the Pacific Coast" is the Oaks Card Club, and its owner hopes it can live on amid a city that looks far different than it did half a century ago.

Now better known as the home of Pixar, IKEA, and the busy Bay Street shopping district, Emeryville was once an infamous haven for gamblers, mobsters, and vice. The Wikipedia page for the town of 12,905 residents will tell you that founder Joseph Stickney Emery decided to incorporate his tract of land in 1896, but it neglects to mention one of the main reasons to incorporate the town — owners of a racetrack in town were tired of answering to the Alameda County sheriff.

The East Bay Times has a new piece that mentions this detail as well as some others, while profiling the Oaks Card Club — a card room that has stood at the corner of San Pablo Avenue and 41st Street since 1898, two years after the town was founded. Along with the Bank Club Cafe up the street, the Oaks Card Club represents the origin story of a town that Sports Illustrated in 1985 referred to as "a seedy little city tucked among mud flats."

As Emeryville Mayor John Bauters tells the East Bay Times, "The card club may sit in contrast to retail outlets and new biotech companies. But it was here first. It’s a really important part of our cultural history."

Still in the ownership of the same family that opened it 125 years ago, the Oaks Card Club isn't going for flash, but that may mean younger gamblers pass it by.

"I’ve never run this club trying to be the biggest, fastest, newest, never been one that wants to make a lot of changes,” says Cole Tibbets, the latest generation of his family to run the place, speaking to the East Bay Times. “I have this historical club with a time-tested business model.”

The Oaks Card Club isn't a casino, and players bet against each other, and not the house, in games like blackjack and three-card poker with $5 and $10 minimum bets. The club makes its money from seat fees and drink sales — and they were once also known for a funky hofbrau, Oaks Corner, that served carved meats as well as Chinese and Vietnamese food, but it's been sadly closed since the start of the pandemic.

The era in which the Oaks Card Club came to be also gave birth to businesses like the Blue Star Amusement Park and the El Rey Burlesque Theatre, as well as a number of saloons, jazz clubs, and illegal bookmaking operations. The East Bay Times also suggests that it was "founded as a sanctuary for exiled gamblers from other Bay Area cities."

This history site notes that Emeryville once also had horse and dog tracks, slot machines in the backs of restaurants, and "poker was played in private rooms and clubs licensed by the city." It was essentially the adult "entertainment capital of the East Bay."

The card club isn't in any immediate danger — despite Emeryville now attracting plenty of retail business in and around Bay Street, the Oaks reportedly still generates 80% of the city's tax revenue. The East Bay Times does note that the card club's business remains down about 20% since before the pandemic.

As Anna Nikitaras, owner of the Bank Club, tells the paper, "If that goes, what’s next?"

SFist once delved into why San Francisco was never much of a mafia town in the way of Chicago or New York, and part of the reason was that the Cosa Nostra instead had their stronghold across the Bay, with their very own harbor for "imports." And word has it that Prohibition was even less enforced in Emeryville than it was in SF.

Maybe somebody needs to open a bar or some other sttraction that pays homage to Emeryville's former underbelly? In any event, check out the Oaks Card Club, if you're of the gambling sort.

Photo courtesy of Oaks Card Club

We now have information from prosecutors about a possible motive in the stabbing death of Bob Lee in downtown San Francisco, and suspect Nima Momeni made a brief court appearance Friday, but his arraignment was postponed.

Momeni said little in court Friday, as KRON4 reports, besides "Yes, Your Honor," and his arraignment has been delayed two weeks because his lawyer is on vacation. His arraignment will now occur at 9 a.m. on April 25.

According to documents filed in court by prosecutors and obtained by the Chronicle, police have surveillance video showing Lee and Momeni leaving Millennium Tower on the night of the stabbing — where Momeni's sister owns a unit — and getting into Momeni's BMW Z4. Allegedly they also have video of the stabbing taking place on the 400 block of Main Street.

Assistant District Attorney Omid Talai filed the documents, outlining investigators' theory of the case, in order to convince the judge to keep Momeni in custody without bail.

An unnamed friend allegedly told investigators that Lee had been partying with friends on the afternoon of April 3, first at an apartment that possibly belonged to Lee at 1500 Mission Street, and at a hotel room he rented at 1 Hotel on the Embarcadero (formerly the Hotel Vitale). Those friends included Momeni's sister, Khazar Elyassnia — with whom the Chronicle reports Lee was already acquainted. This friend, named by prosecutors as Witness 1, apparently told investigators that Lee knew that Elyassnia's marriage "had possibly been in jeopardy."

It's not clear where the hotel room comes into this — the apartment is also described as Lee's apparently — or who traveled to the hotel and when.

The friend allegedly witnessed a confrontation between Lee and Momeni, either at the apartment or the hotel, in which Lee was insisting that Momeni's sister was not doing drugs and that "nothing inappropriate had happened."

Investigators also found a text message on Lee's phone from the sister, saying, "Just wanted to make sure your doing ok cause I know Nima came wayyyyyy down hard on you and thank you for being such a classy man handling it with class love you selfish pricks."

Surveillance footage allegedly shows Momeni and Lee in an elevator in Millennium Tower, exiting the building together at 2:03 a.m. on April 4. Momeni had gotten to his sister's condo around 8:30 p.m., and Lee joined them there at 12:39 a.m., and the two men reportedly left together and got into Momeni's BMW. They then drove the opposite direction of Lee's hotel, and standing outside the vehicle near the Bay Bridge on the 400 block of Main Street, video purportedly shows a man police identified as Momeni "lunge toward" the man identified as Lee, followed by Lee stumbling away up the block. This would have been followed by the events in the surveillance footage we already saw of a wounded Lee trying to seek help at the Portside II building, which had an unmanned lobby.

There is also allegedly video evidence of Momeni disposing of the four-inch kitchen knife used in the stabbing, by a CalTrans fence where it was later found by investigators.

Momeni, an Emeryville resident, was arrested early Thursday morning, about ten days after his alleged acquaintance Bob Lee was found with a fatal stab wound to the heart on the 300 block of Main Street, on April 4.

We know from multiple accounts now that both men were avid partyers — Lee was known to friends and colleagues as "Crazy Bob," and friends have said he was always the last to leave a party or gathering. According to neighbors in the Emeryville loft complex where Momeni lived, the Besler Building, several of whom spoke to reporters on Thursday, Momeni was friendly and social, and there was an account in the LA Times of a woman wandering the hallway the night before Lee's "screaming" Momeni's name around 2:30 a.m., because she didn't know which unit was his. This led to a neighbor complaint being filed.

A neighbor who considered himself a friend told the Daily Beast that Momeni "moonlighted as a DJ and 'pissed off all the neighbors playing loud music at all hours of the night' and hosting parties."

One neighbor spoke to the Chronicle and said that "Momeni had come to his door the night of the killing, asking for alcohol." The man did not give his name, and, the Chron reports, "It wasn’t clear if the neighbor met with Momeni before or after the stabbing."

Momeni's family is of Iranian dissent, and they are members of a persecuted religious minority there, Zoroastrians. Born in Iran (ca. 1984/5), Momeni came to the US with his mother sometime in the 80s, as a family friend told Forbes.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Momeni attended Laney College and Vista College as well as UC Berkeley, however the Chronicle contacted UC Berkeley and they said they had no record of anyone attending the school by that name.

Momeni had an IT and cybersecurity consulting startup called Expand IT, which he apparently founded around 2010. It was successful enough that he had bought the condo in Emeryville for $525,000 in 2020.

Momeni's sister and his brother-in-law, plastic surgeon Dr. Dino Elyassnia, appeared in court Friday along with several other of Momeni's family members.

The SF Standard reported that the SFPD served a search warrant Thursday at Momeni's sister's condo in Millennium Tower, as well as one at 1 Hotel.

The Daily Beast has it from the neighbor/friend that Momeni "had a few guns and knives lying around at his bachelor-pad apartment," and that he had been acting strangely for the last week — multiple times talking about traveling to Colombia and inviting the neighbor to come. He also allegedly told the neighbor he was expecting a visit from police, but that it was related to a "conflict with some girl."

Lee’s ex-wife Krista Lee referred to Momeni as a "soulless piece of shit" in a text to a Daily Beast reporter.

Per the Chronicle, Momeni had a misdemeanor DUI on his record in Alameda County from 2004 — when he would have been around 19 years old — and in 2011, he was arrested for allegedly selling a switchblade knife and driving with a suspended license. He pleaded no contest to the license thing, the knife charge was dropped, and he served 10 days in jail.

Previously: SF District Attorney Slams 'Reckless and Irresponsible' Tweets By Musk and Others Following Murder Arrest

This story has been updated with further details about the events of April 3, and the alleged text message from Khazar Elyassnia.