After a seventh day of deliberations, the jury said they had reached a verdict Monday in the trial of Nima Momeni for the killing of Bob Lee in April 2023. But the verdict won't be read until Tuesday morning.
Jurors returned to deliberations at 1:30 pm Monday after a weekend off, and the length of their deliberations has caused rampant speculation — though legal experts surmised that, given the seriousness of a murder charge, a careful and lengthy deliberation may just mean that jurors were taking their job as seriously as they should be.
As KRON4's Amy Larson reported on Xitter from the Hall of Justice Monday afternoon just after 4 pm, "Jurors looked relieved and solemn as they left the San Francisco courthouse moments ago." Less than an hour earlier, prosecutors entered the courtroom for the first time since deliberations began, but did not answer questions from reporters.
Jurors were asked to consider whether Momeni could be found guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, of premeditated murder, or whether he should be found guilty of a lesser charge, like second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter.
Lee was stabbed three times by a small kitchen knife with a four-inch blade — part of a set that belonged to Momeni's sister, Khazar Momeni, and had been taken from her kitchen. The Momeni siblings and Lee had been together in Khazar Momeni's condo about 20 minutes before the stabbing occurred. The prosecution contended that Nima Momeni was enraged at Lee for leaving his sister in a situation where she may have been sexually violated — though she would later contend she was not, despite a series of contradictory statements.
Momeni's defense never denied that Momeni stabbed Lee, but they tried to contend — contrary to DNA evidence on the knife — that Lee had taken the knife and Momeni had turned it back on him in self-defense.
The defense had tried to inject a final bit of doubt at the end of the trial about Lee, and a metal implement he could be seen using to do cocaine on surveillance video outside The Battery social club, claiming that it was the murder weapon. This seemed far from clear in the video, court watchers said, and Lee's ex-wife Krista Lee told reporters she knew what the object was: a metal collar stay that Lee had used for years to do bumps of cocaine. Lee's DNA was not found on the handle of the knife, only its blade.
The court announced that the jury had reached its verdict as of 3:50 pm Monday, but "given the time of day" they were allowed to go home before the reading of the verdict, which is scheduled for 9:30 am Tuesday. Jurors have typically been dismissed each day at 4:30 pm, and perhaps some had commitments that would prevent them from staying past that hour.
