A female juror who fell ill had to be replaced with an alternate Tuesday morning, as potentially the final day began in the murder trial of Nima Momeni.
We know most of the talking points that lead defense attorney Saam Zangeneh will touch on in his closing argument today, but there may be some finer points that we will learn from courtroom accounts in the coming hours.
As NBC Bay Area reports, the proceedings kicked off Tuesday with an alternate juror needing to step in to replace a juror who called out sick. It's of course unclear how that may change the calculus of either side when it comes to winning a conviction or an acquittal, but we know that a female juror was replaced with another female.
Deputy District Attorney Dane Reinstedt delivered the closing argument for the prosecution on Monday, taking most of the day doing so, and victim Bob Lee's brother, Tim "Oliver" Lee, told reporters afterward that Reinstadt's "summation ... was awesome."
The defense will wrap up their case Tuesday reiterating their theory of the case, in which Momeni acted in self-defense in turning a knife back on Bob Lee in April 2023 — a scenario the prosecution called preposterous on Monday, and one in which the jury will have to accept that only Momeni's DNA was on the handle of the knife, and that after stabbing Lee three times, Momeni believed he was unhurt and walked away without calling 911.
In his own testimony on the witness stand two weeks ago, Momeni said that Lee had become suddenly enraged by a "bad joke," in which Momeni said that if he were in Lee's shoes — at 2 am on a Tuesday morning — he would be "with his family" as opposed to heading to a strip club.
Lee's drug use will no doubt play heavily into the defense's closing argument — although Momeni has admitted to doing drugs with Lee that night.
As KTVU reports, one of the first things Zangeneh touched on was the character assassination of one of expert witnesses. The prosecution reiterated in closing on Monday that retired SFPD inspector Steven Pomatto had lied to fellow police officers about being a Navy SEAL — something that one current officer testified to as a rebuttal witness.
The defense used Pomatto's testimony to back up the notion that Lee's wounds could have been the result of a redirection of a knife in self-defense. "I don't know if the San Francisco Police Department sweeps liars under the rug when it helps them, but boy, do they bring it out when it hurts them," Zangeneh said in closing, per KTVU. He then told the jury that this discrediting of a former officer means that dozens of defendants who were investigated by him for "assault, drug-dealing, rape, you name it" will be "running to the courthouse to reopen cases."
Zangeneh continued in his closing to question the prosecution's theory of motive — that Momeni was enraged at Lee for bringing his sister into the situation in which, at least initially, she claimed to have been sexually assaulted by Lee's drug dealer friend, Jeremy Boivin.
Per KTVU, Zangeneh told jurors, "Imagine how crazy it sounds. Kill the friend of someone that touched his sister's butt and gave her a drug? Does that sound crazy? Because that's what they're saying."
Zangeneh also pulled out some surprise footage of Bob Lee doing cocaine with his friend Bo Mohazzabi the night before he was murdered, suggesting that the prosecution had tried to hide this footage from the jury.
This is a developing story.
This post has been updated.
Previously: Prosecutor Uses Momeni's Temperament on Stand Against Him In Closing Argument