San Francisco Police Commissioner William Scott and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins (R) at a news conference about the murder of Cash App founder Bob Lee.
The man accused of fatally assaulting Silicon Valley CEO Bob Lee will plead not guilty to the murder, his attorney said.
The indictment of suspect Nima Momeni in San Francisco state court was delayed Tuesday, but his attorney, Paula Canny, told reporters at the courthouse that camera footage used by prosecutors as evidence does not support a first-degree murder charge.
“I don’t think you can see anything in the videos,” she said.
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has asked the court not to grant bail and release Momeni, arguing the April 4 murder was “planned and intentional.”
Lee, 43, who was chief product officer at cryptocurrency startup MobileCoin and created the Cash App, was revered in the tech world for his programming talents. Prosecutors say he was stabbed to death with a kitchen knife on a downtown San Francisco street after meeting with friends, including Momeni’s sister.
Momeni appeared in court for the second time on Tuesday and his indictment was again postponed to May 2. Canny said she’s waiting for an autopsy report from the city coroner’s office. Jenkins said at a news conference that the report could take weeks to complete.
Canny told Bloombeg News she would resist the district attorney’s efforts to keep her client, a 38-year-old IT consultant, jailed pending his trial.
In a court filing in support of Momeni’s detention, prosecutors cited surveillance footage showing the men in Momeni’s car pulling out of his sister’s apartment building together and driving into a “dark and remote area.”
A color video segment cited in the filing then shows two men standing on a sidewalk for about five minutes – with the camera too far away to make out their faces – before one suddenly moves toward the other. The men then separate, one walking away injured and the other moving along a fence line where the knife was later recovered, according to the filing, which describes Momeni’s BMW speeding away from the scene.
Jenkins told reporters Tuesday that Canny was given DNA evidence from the bloodied knife. She declined to elaborate.
The district attorney said she believes Canny saw enough evidence for Momeni to file a plea deal. Jenkins expressed disappointment that the indictment was delayed, especially after many of Lee’s family members turned up for Tuesday’s hearing.
