Jury deliberations in Nima Momeni trial for Bob Lee's murder move into fourth day
Jury deliberations in the San Francisco murder trial of Nima Momeni, the man prosecutors accuse of fatally stabbing of Cash App founder Bob Lee last year, will resume Tuesday morning.
The jury was set to reconvene at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, the fourth day of deliberations since first receiving the case last Wednesday.
Momeni was charged with first-degree murder in the 2023 deadly stabbing of tech executive Lee The crime carries a sentence of 26-years-to-life in prison, though jurors are also considering second-degree murder and manslaughter in the case.
The judge instructed jurors that whatever verdict they reach must be unanimous.
Momeni is accused of killing Lee in a remote part of San Francisco's East Cut neighborhood under the Bay Bridge on an early morning in April 2023. The prosecution argued Momeni stabbed the tech executive in anger over introducing his sister Khazar Momeni to an alleged drug dealer who fed her drugs and sexually assaulted her.
During the trial, Momeni's lawyers claimed their client acted in self-defense when Lee lunged at Momeni with a knife in hand while high on cocaine and ketamine. The defense said Lee became erratic and aggressive after Momeni made a "bad joke" about the tech executive wanting to go to a strip club instead of spending time with his family.
Jurors are going over 21 days of sometimes contentious testimony and thousands of pieces of evidence as they weigh Momeni's fate.
Attorney Shannon Dugan was in the courtroom for the entirety of the trial as an observer. She told CBS News Bay Area the fact that the jury hasn't come to a decision yet could be a good sign for the defendant.
"If everybody agrees quickly on the evidence and on the law, they could come back with a verdict of guilty faster, although there's always the exceptions," said Dugan. "But I also think this jury's working really hard to get it right. I think they shoulder a heavy responsibility for both sides, and they're taking their job very seriously."
