The high-profile murder trial of Nima Momeni, the man accused of murdering Cash App co-founder Bob Lee, continued Monday in San Francisco.
Momeni returned to the stand to testify in his own defense, but during Monday's proceedings, it was the judge asking the questions on behalf of the jurors. Judge Alexandra Gordon said she has found such witness questioning extremely valuable.
Momeni is charged with fatally stabbing Lee in the early morning hours of April 4, 2023, in a secluded San Francisco neighborhood. His attorneys say the stabbing was self-defense, and he was sticking to the story that Lee lunged at him with a knife after the two took drugs in Momeni's car.
After two days of listening to Momeni testify, jurors told the judge they wanted more answers. They submitted them in writing to the judge, who reviewed and then asked many of them directly to Momeni.
"It’s very unusual for a court to allow jurors to question the witnesses directly," legal analyst Steven Clark said. "What you're seeing here is the jurors getting very involved in this case, and it's clear that there was a lot of information they wanted from Mr. Momeni that wasn't brought out in either direct or cross-examination."
One juror asked why Momeni didn’t call police after he claims he was attacked by Lee. Momeni testified he himself was not hurt and Lee seemed fine, too, saying that’s why he didn’t call 911.
Lee’s brother Oliver said it was tough on his family to, in his words, hear Momeni rewrite history.
"You can see how he's led this life of irresponsibility and this life of carrying around knives and hurting people with knives and doing all these horrible things, that he's trying to rewrite this history of him being a good guy, and that's just not true," Oliver said.
Many of the jurors' questions focused on what Momeni did in the moments and days after Lee was stabbed.
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"I think it actually bodes better for the defense that the jury has so many questions," Clark said.
A retired San Francisco police sergeant with experience in analyzing wounds also testified for the defense Monday.
He said it was reasonable to conclude the knife was in the right hand of Lee and he may have been injured as Momeni tried to wrangle it away from him.
