Claiming a prejudiced legal saga, Nima Momeni, a convicted murderer, is accusing racial bias in his trial. Momeni, of Iranian origin and not holding US citizenship, is poised for another day in a San Francisco courtroom where his legal defense team intends to argue that racial discrimination played a significant role in the proceedings that concluded with his guilty verdict for the murder of Cash App visionary, Bob Lee.
Momeni, aged 42, faced a jury in December 2024, which resulted in him being convicted on charges of second-degree murder.
Taking a bold step, his defense is now leveraging the California Racial Justice Act, raising contentions that suggest prosecutorial misconduct influenced by racial prejudice, as reported by Courthouse News Service.
This Friday morning, a San Francisco Superior Court judge will delve into the veracity of these claims during an evidentiary hearing. The discussions are set to examine whether the prosecution’s language demeaned Momeni through racial overtones, potentially impacting the fairness of his trial.
A San Francisco Superior Court judge will hear the claim at an evidentiary hearing Friday morning, including allegations that prosecutors used dehumanizing and ethnically charged descriptions of Momeni during the trial.
Momeni was born in Iran and speaks English as a second language.
The case began in the early-morning hours of April 4, 2023, when Lee, 43, was stabbed through the heart beneath the Bay Bridge between about 2:25 a.m. to 2:30 a.m.
Lee, a father of two, had been a major name in tech.
He worked as a Google engineer, founded Cash App and later became an executive at cryptocurrency company MobileCoin.
After the stabbing, Lee left a trail of blood as he called 911 begging for help before collapsing on Main Street.
Prosecutors said Momeni went after Lee in a revenge attack involving his younger sister, Khazar, after she was sexually assaulted by a drug dealer.
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Momeni blamed Lee, prosecutors said, because Lee had used drugs with Khazar, introduced her to the dealer and left her alone with the assailant.
Khazar, married to a wealthy plastic surgeon, had a casual relationship with Lee and attended parties with him. Prosecutors showed jurors flirtatious text messages between the pair.
Prosecutors argued Momeni lured Lee away from Khazar’s luxury Millennium Tower apartment and brought him to a dark street beneath the Bay Bridge to kill him.
Khazar later sent Lee a message that morning before realizing he was dead: “Just wanted to make sure your doing ok. Cause i know nima came wayyyyyy down hard on you.”
She also bombarded Momeni with angry messages asking what had happened to Lee after they left her apartment. Jurors saw messages in which she called her brother a “lunatic” and “psycho.”
Momeni took the stand and offered a different story.
He testified Lee attacked him after Momeni made a “bad joke” about Lee spending time in strip clubs instead of with his family.
Prosecutors said Lee was unarmed when he was killed.
California’s Racial Justice Act became law in 2021. In 2025, a San Francisco judge granted an RJA motion for the first time in the city, finding implicit racial bias against a Black man convicted of gun charges.
His felony conviction was reduced to a misdemeanor.
It is unclear what would happen to Momeni’s murder conviction if a judge grants his RJA motion.
And despite the guilty verdict, Momeni still hasn’t been sentenced.
Nearly 20 months after jurors convicted him, he remains in San Francisco County jail awaiting a heavily delayed sentencing hearing.
He faces 16 years to life behind bars.