Content warning: This article describes murder and sexual assault. Please take care while reading.
Tech consultant Nima Momeni was found guilty Tuesday of Cash App found Bob Lee‘s shocking murder in San Francisco in April last year. Momeni’s sister, Khazar Momeni, testified at her brother’s trial, and what she said may have influenced the decision to convict.
In her testimony, Khazar said a man named Jeremy Boivin, a drug dealer to whom she was introduced by Lee, had sexually assaulted her the day before Lee died, and that her brother Nima knew about the attack. “Prosecutors said this was the motive behind the murder,” KRON reporter Amy Larson wrote on X, referring to the case. “Accused killer Nima Momeni was an allegedly ‘overprotective’ big brother who was enraged about what happened to his sister,” Larson said.
However, Nima’s defense team claimed that Nima acted in self-defense, and that Lee — whose autopsy revealed that he had drugs in his system when he was murdered — attacked him first when Nima made a joke about Lee as a dad. Nima was at first charged with first-degree murder, but the jury settled on a lesser charge, murder in the second-degree.
Explaining the difference, attorney Randall Knox told San Francisco news outlet ABC 7, “You start with, do people agree it was premeditated and deliberate with malice and forethought? If 12 people don’t agree with that, then they consider if it’s second-degree murder,” Knox said. Once sentenced, Nima could spend the rest of his life in prison.
The day before Bob Lee died
San Francisco news outlet KRON 4 says Khazar, married to a high-powered plastic surgeon, lived in Millenium Tower, a luxury high-rise in downtown San Francisco.
According to The Times, Lee had recently moved to Miami and was back in San Francisco for a visit, and he was partying at Millenium Tower on April 3, the day before his death. Lee and Khazar were rumored to be sexually involved, but Khazar testified on the stand that their flirtations, via text, were just jokes.
Testifying for several days at her brother’s trial, Khazar said the day before Lee died, the tech mogul showed up at her Millenium Tower apartment for a party with his drug dealer, Jeremy Boivin. Before long, Khazar and others left Millenium Tower and went to Boivon’s place. Khazar said everyone there did drugs that day. While at Boivon’s apartment, Khazar said, she passed out because of drugs Boivon gave her, including GHB, the “date rape drug,” and that Boivon sexually assaulted her while she drifted in and out of consciousness.
When she woke up, she texted Nima and told him what happened, and where she was. According to Khazar, her brother picked her up and drove her home. Khazar never reported the alleged sexual assault to the police. Khazar said she was at her apartment with Nimi and her husband when Boivon came back that night to pick up drugs he had left there earlier that day.
Casting some doubt on Khazar’s sexual assault allegations, Boivon supplied Khazar with drugs for months after Lee’s murder, and they remained in contact. Despite that fact, Khazar testified on the stand that Boivon assaulted her several more times after Lee died, and in one case, her mother called the police, but once law enforcement arrived, “I wouldn’t admit to it,” Khazar said on the stand.
The morning of the murder
At some point early on April 4, Boivon left, and Lee returned. Lee and Nima met, and Khazar said things weren’t tense between the two men, but before long, at around 2 a.m., she asked the two men to leave. Not long afterward, at around 2:40 a.m., Nimi stabbed Lee near the Bay Bridge, Mission Local reported.
Nimi called his sister shortly after that. “He was concerned he wanted to make sure I had gone to sleep,” Khazar said on the stand, according to Mission Local. “He was telling me his night didn’t turn out the way he wanted to, and he told me not to let Bob back home.” Nima told her Lee was acting “erratic,” Khazar said.
Khazar also said on the stand that Lee and several other people, possibly including her brother, had done cocaine in the days leading up to the Cash App founder’s murder. Referring to Nima’s guilty verdict, Lee’s brother, Oliver Lee, said it was a difficult case to prove. He added, “We’re happy that Nima Momeni will not be on the streets and no longer has the opportunity to harm anyone else in this world.”
If you know someone suffering from sexual violence, contact RAINN or the National Sexual Abuse Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.