It has seemed from the beginning like a very open-and-shut case for the prosecution, but Nima Momeni's defense team made a big show in their closing argument of rolling out some surveillance footage of victim Bob Lee doing cocaine off what they say was the murder weapon (but likely wasn't).
Tuesday was the final day of the trial, and it ended with Momeni's defense attorney Saam Zangeneh delivering his closing argument. As noted yesterday, Zangeneh tried to convince the jury that his client had no motive for killing Bob Lee and wasn't angry at all the night of the murder.
Also, he questioned why the SFPD would want to discredit one of their own, the defense's expert witness, retired SFPD inspector Steven Pomatto, who testified in support of the defense's self-defense theory. The prosection called a current SFPD member as a rebuttal witness to testify that Pomatto had lied about being a Navy SEAL, and Zangeneh suggested to the jury that this would mean many people convicted by evidence collected by Pomatto could now seek new trials.
But the "bombshell" that Zangeneh built up to in his closing argument was a surveillance video taken in the hours before Lee was killed, at The Battery in downtown SF, showing Lee doing cocaine with the friend he left Jeremey Boivin's apartment with, Bo Mohazzabi. In what the Chronicle describes as "indistinct" footage, Lee can reportedly be seen doing cocaine out of a baggie using a small metal object.
"That's the knife," Zangeneh told the jury, per the Chronicle. "It's been there the whole time."
Zangeneh went on to say that he couldn't explain why there wasn't any of Lee's DNA on the handle of the knife -- only his blood on the blade -- and he suggested that maybe Lee had taken it from Khazar Momeni's kitchen when he was there earlier in the day, and had kept it in his pocket.
Outside the courtroom, Lee's ex-wife, Krista Lee, told the Chronicle the object was a metal collar stay which Lee always used for doing bumps of cocaine.
"I know it was a collar stay because that's the only thing Bob used -- a metal collar stay," she told the paper, adding, "He was very dainty about his drug use. He was not the kind of guy to pull out a knife and do big scoops -- he didn't even do a line. He just did little bumps, and that's what the video shows."
A three- or four-inch metal collar stay is a far different object than a paring knife, but the video does not sound like it was particularly clear. Still, Zangeneh reportedly insisted to reporters outside the courtroom, per KTVU, "I'm telling you that, we've done the dimensions, we've broken it down, he's holding the same exact shape, size of the knife that was found outside of the Caltrans parking lot. That's the knife!"
The prosecution gave a brief rebuttal after the defense's closing, telling the jury, "The defense's closing was misleading at times, and wrong and false at other times. Do you want to believe the person who's deceiving you, or do you want to follow science and common sense?"
Prosecutor Omid Talai added, per KTVU, that either Momeni killed Lee, or "this is the biggest damn coincidence in the history of all coincidences."
Judge Alexandra Robert Gordon was set to give jurors their final instructions Wednesday before deliberations begin.