Convicted killer Nima Momeni and his new attorney — new as of last summer, at least — were due back in court Friday for an evidentiary hearing in Momeni's appeal on the basis of racial or ethnic bias.

20 months after he was convicted in the April 2023 murder of well-known tech entrepreneur Bob Lee, Nima Momeni was back in San Francisco Superior Court Friday seeking to have his 2024 second-degree murder conviction overturned.

It would appear to be a Hail Mary shot, but an attorney for Nima Momeni is invoking California's Racial Justice Act, which took effect in 2021, and which prohibits "bias based on race, ethnicity, or national origin in charges, convictions and sentences." As we reported last month, Momeni's attorney Daniel Shriro presented arguments before Judge Patrick Thompson that racial or ethnic bias played a role in both the prosecution's presentation of the case against Momeni, and in the trial judge's handling of the trial.

Momeni, who was born in Iran, emigrated along with his mother and sister as a teenager and settled in the Bay Area. And Shriro argues that stereotypes about Middle Eastern men were invoked at trial and may have played a role in the jury's decision to convict.

Among the issues Shriro raised was the use of the term "honor killing" at trial by Assistant District Attorney Omid Talai, and phrases like "overprotective psycho" and "animal 24/7" that were used to describe Momeni — though these were actually phrases that came directly from text messages sent by Momeni's sister Khazar, describing her brother.

As KRON4 reports, it remains unclear what the next steps would be if the judge were to find that there is compelling evidence of racial or ethnic bias in how the case was tried.

Momeni has yet to be sentenced in the killing, and for second-degree murder, he faces a potential sentence of 16 years to life.

Momeni was convicted of stabbing Bob Lee in a shadowy area beneath the Bay Bridge in the early morning hours of April 4, 2023. The two men had, minutes before, been at the Millennium Tower condo of Khazar Momeni, also known by her married name Khazar Elyassnia, who had been hanging out with Lee earlier that day.

Prosecutors presented evidence that Khazar and a female friend were left alone by Lee with a man identified as Lee's drug dealer, Jeremy Boivin — but with whom Khazar allegedly proceeded to have a consensual, casual sex relationship with months after all this took place. Khazar was allegedly given recreational drugs that she was not used to, including LSD and GHB, and she later called her brother, crying, to pick her up from Boivin's apartment.

The Momeni siblings were described by witnesses as having an unusually tight relationship, and testimony suggested Nima Momeni was fiercely protective of Khazar, and was led to believe she was sexually assaulted that afternoon — the evidence for which is scant, and she herself reportedly told Momeni that Bob Lee "never touched" her and that "no one did."

Tensions escalated to where Lee was called, late at night, over to Khazar Momeni's apartment, where he was apparently confronted by Nima, though we don't know what occurred during this meeting, which lasted well over an hour.

Before knowing Lee was dead, Khazar Momeni sent him a text message to make sure he was ok, and saying that her brother had "come down wayyy hard" on him.

Lee would end up stabbed multiple times in the torso and chest with a kitchen knife that had come from a set in Khazar's apartment. Nima Moneni's defense at trial was that Lee had been the one with the knife, and he simply turned the knife back on his attacker in self-defense.

At an initial hearing on the Racial Justice Act motion in July, per Courthouse News, Assistant District Attorney Natalie Fuchs dismissed the evidence as thin and non-specific that bias played any role in the prosecution, saying that the defense was creating "a narrative of the prosecution that is belied by the record."

Fuchs further argued that use of the terms "psycho" and "animal" would be exempted under the RJA because they were taken directly from text-message evidence from the defendant's sister.

In addition to the sentencing still pending for Momeni, a civil wrongful death suit was filed in April 2025 by Lee's family against Momeni and members of his family, which alleges a family conspiracy to destroy and cover up evidence in the case, among other allegations.

Previously: Nima Momeni, Convicted of Killing Bob Lee Over 18 Months Ago, Sees Sentencing Delayed Again

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