A true crime story never really ends. Even when a case is closed, the journey for those left behind is just beginning. Since our Dateland story aird, Tracy has harnessed her outrage into a mission. I had no other option. I had to do something. Catch up with families, friends, and investigators on our bonus series, After the Verdict. Ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances with strength and courage. It does just change your life, but speaking up for these issues helps me keep going. To listen to After the Verdict, subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at datelinepremium. Com. Tonight on guideline. I feel very inspired by my dad. He was such a good person. I realized I had missed calls. There was just this bit in my stomach. The doctor said we were not to save him. I went blank. Are you telling me that Bob is dead? He's a prominent person in the tech world. A friend texted me, Tell the police to check the footage of the Millennium Tower. There's a large high rise. A lot of people live there, and almost all of them have money. Yes. There's this glamorous spread in a magazine, and she's gorgeous.

She and Bob hang around with each other. They're in that circle. Cazar puts the of them on a collision course. We have them getting into the elevator. I think he was out for blood that night. I felt my stomach drop. That is the most far-out story I've ever heard. A luxury high rise full of the rich and famous, a murder on a dark street below, and a city holding its breath for answers. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateland. Here's Josh Mankowitsch with Under the Bay Bridge. Hello. It's going to be happy. Help. April 4, 2023. The 911 call came in around 2: 30 AM from this lonely block on the streets of San Francisco. Help. Help. The man never gave his name. He had only one desperate plea for the operator on the other end of the line. Help. Help. And he kept repeating it. Help me, please. Security cameras captured the man as he staggered to the front of a luxury apartment building, grabbed onto the call box, and then fell to the pavement. He fumbled with his phone and then somehow managed to get up and take a few more steps. Within a few minutes, officers arrived to find him unresponsive.

Where are you stuck, man? Where are you stuck, man? They did CPR. The average adult male has about five quarts of blood. One, two, three. This guy had already parted ways with a lot of his. San Francisco has long been a destination for pioneers and explorers, up to and including the more modern gold rush of the digital age. Then, as now, a place to stake your claim in the California dream. It's also a city where you can become both famous and infamous, and where success and failure get an equal amount of ink. So when fate and fortune collided in the shadow of the Bay Bridge, people may have thought they knew what happened. Well, this was no ordinary crime nor ordinary circumstances. And that man on the ground was no ordinary victim. San Francisco Police Sergeant, Brent Dittmer, got the call. And I figured, well, maybe this is going to be something minor. It didn't turn out to be minor. Not quite. Sergeant Dittmer went to the scene at the corner of Main Street and Harrison in the Rincón Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. We just don't have a lot of callouts to that area.

It's not an area where there's a lot of violent crime. They knew where the victim had collapsed, who attacked him and where? Still unknown. And you find a blood trail. That's right. Which points where? So the blood trail moves up this sidewalk along the building toward Harrison Street. He ends here, which means he came down here. That's right. There were some blood swipes on the building itself, but then it was blood drips that were moving down the sidewalk up towards Harrison Street. You can tell from the droplets the direction that the person was traveling. Yes. And as we get close to Harrison here, the blood drops went across the street over toward the west sidewalk. Uniformed officers followed that blood trail to this fence about half a block from where the man collapsed. They scanned with flashlights, and then there it was. There's a knife over here. The knife was on the other side of a fence located near where this blood trail starts. The area that was fenced off is a parking lot. That's probably your knife. Probably the knife. Blood on it? Yes. That blood was on the blade of this small paring knife.

The blade, only three and a half inches long, and the brand, Joseph Joseph. Police sent that to the crime lab, looking for a DNA sample. What's the time lag from when they log it in to when you actually get some result back? Sometimes it's a couple of weeks, sometimes it's months, sometimes it's over a year. Down here? Detectives started knocking on doors. Maybe someone had seen or heard something. This is Main Street after all, except the 911 call came in around 2: 30 AM. Witnesses? Not really. There was a homeless person that was contacted by the officer. That person had been released from the scene, and he didn't say that he saw, heard, or knew about anything that happened. Sergeant Dittmer's team began pulling videos from buildings around the area. Is that an area where there are a lot of cameras? There's some. There aren't as many as you'd like. There's never as many as you like. Never. And they're never as good as you want them to be. It was during the search for video that Dittmer got a call. The victim had been identified. We were notified that the victim was Bob Lee.

You ever heard of Bob Lee before? No. What do you hear from the hospital about what his injuries were? I knew initially that he had been stabbed once in the right hip, and then there were two additional stabs lab wounds on the left chest. One of those punctured his heart. So who was Bob Lee? And just as important, what brought him to that downtown street in the small hours of that April morning. My focus was just, let's figure out what happened here and who did it and just get on that trail. That trail would lead to some strange places. That was a text that you got? Anonymous text. I fear that I will be stabbed, too. To a slew of rumors. What is going on in San Francisco? They're like, this could happen. To some unforgettable characters. I mean, in San Francisco, you have money, but you don't wear your money, and she wears her money. And the family at the center of it all. She also just seemed like she was there to help her brother however she could. All culminating in a trial of about what really happened under the Bay Bridge. There's powers that are not normally in play when the decedent is the person that Bob Lee is.

Not a regular victim. We call it victim plus. The skies were still dark over San Francisco Bay when Christa Lee felt the first inkling. Something was just not right on that Tuesday morning in April. I woke up around 6: 30 like I usually do. When I grabbed my phone, I realized I had missed calls. Three missed calls in fact, all from the same unknown number. So she looked it up. It was San Francisco General Hospital, and I found that to be a little strange. Who's calling you from the hospital? Exactly. So then, as I was taking Scout, our youngest, to school, I said, Do me a favor. Check dad's location for me really quick. Dad was Bob Lee, divorced from Krista for years, but maintaining a close friendship and co-parenting relationship for their two children. I don't know why, but there was just a feeling, this pit in my stomach. And then Scout, 14 at the time, told her where the phone seemed to be located. It was at the police station. Specifically the SFPD's Southern Station. I remember my stomach just like... I felt nauseous, I didn't know why. Krista reminded herself locating a phone that way was an inexact science.

And besides, Bob was staying at a hotel nearby since he'd recently relocated to Miami. I'm like, This is a little odd. I'm not going to let my overactive imagination take hold just yet. So Krista got on with the morning rush, dropped Scout off at school. And when she got home, she tried that missed number from the hospital. And the operator had said, Oh, I'm so sorry. We were probably just verifying or confirming an appointment. And I thought, This is strange. I don't have appointments down there. So she sent Bob a text. Didn't hear back from him, which is very bizarre because by 10: 00 AM, Bob is up and running. He would always text you back. Always, yeah. Either text, call, anything. We were always in contact with each other. So that's weird. It was very strange. By 10: 00, 11: 00 AM, I still had not heard from him. Krista did hear from someone else, a friend of Bob's. He's like, I'm supposed to take him to the airport, and he's not picking up his phone. I'm like, I know he hasn't returned my messages either. The friend told Krista he'd go down to the police station just to check.

And said, By any chance, is this guy by the name of Bob Lee here? And the woman said, Are you family. That's never good when they ask that. And it wasn't good. The police told the friend Bob was at the hospital. I jumped in the car with my boyfriend, and we sped as fast as we could down to the hospital. And every scenario at that time was going through my head. What? He's been mugged? Mugged. Car accident, hit by a car, hit by a self-driving car in San Francisco. Every little scenario. And so we get there, and they escorted us back into private waiting room, which at that point, too, I felt just sick to my stomach. Like, What is going on here? Is he in a coma? What happened? And shortly after that, the nurse and the attending doctor walked in and said, Are to Bob Lee's wife? Yes, I'm his former wife. And I said, I'm so sorry. We did everything we could, but we were not able to save him. Bob, she was told, had been fatally stabbed. He was 43. At that time, I went blank. I stared at the doctor like, Are you telling me that Bob is dead?

It was in that moment that you almost fall to the floor. You don't think it's real. My whole body just went flush. This is not real. And that's all I kept thinking was, You have the wrong person. This isn't real. I need to get home to the kids right now. They're getting out of school. It's 3: 00 in the afternoon. I need to go now. Krista rushed home to her children, serious, then 17, and Scout, who'd been taking an after-school nap. She's like, We're going to your sister's room, and I'm like, Okay, what's happening? And that's when she breaks the news. I remember I thought that I was still dreaming. I really wish that I was. Sergeant Dittmer spoke with Bob's family. When you say to Krista, Is there some obvious suspect? She says, There wasn't. She didn't have any idea why this would happen. Hard to find people who didn't like Bob Lee? I can't think of anybody who said they didn't like Bob Lee. Now it was up to police to figure out if this was a random crime or whether someone in Bob's life would want to hurt him. Police were about to learn the late Bob Lee was no average guy.

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It's built to fit your lifestyle, and our experts will guide you every step of the way. Come on, let's do this. To subscribe Download Start today from the App Store on your Apple device now. Terms apply, cancel anytime through Apple under profile settings. At first, police knew little about Bob Lee, the man stabbed to death in the shadow of San Francisco's Bay Bridge. Reporter Sergio Quintana covered the case for NBC Bay Area. San San Francisco was an interesting city because you know you live in the tech world, but most residents don't know who these people are. But people in the tech industry knew who Bob Lee is. Soon, police were starting to learn what the tech world already knew. Bob Lee was a big deal. Bob was, I think, a very rare person in the tech world. He invented so many things. Bob's friends and former coworkers, Ajit Varma and Carlos Witt. He was building some of the best tools on the planet. You've probably heard of and maybe even used some of Bob's tools. He helped develop Android for Google. He founded the financial service Cash App, and he was a top executive at Square and Mobile Coin, just to mention a few.

Way beyond just what he created individually, he empowered so many other people to create amazing things. You must have been proud of Yeah, very proud of my brother. And he continually amazed me with things. Oliver Lee was Bob's younger brother by just 18 months. They grew up a world away from Silicon Valley, outside of St. Louis, Missouri. You can imagine two boys, close in age. Growing up at the Midwest, we built a lot of forts in the woods. We did everything together. Their dad, Rick Lee, an engineer, sparked an interest in technology. We wanted a computer, and so we bought a Tandy 1,000 on time payments because it was almost $3,000. He saw it as an investment in us. We started messing around with that computer, and then we just built from there. And your parents encourage this because you're explorers? Absolutely. He's like, if they take it apart, they'll probably put it back together, right? By high school, Bob was creating computer games for his friends and even programs for the school. He was their tech expert for the high school. Bob went to college, but not for long. The dot-com boom of the late '90s beckoned.

He was at the breaking wave of tech. Yeah, it was a Wild West of many parts of tech. He wanted to go solve problems on his own. In 2001, Bob first made a name for himself by solving a major problem. He developed a fix for a dangerous computer virus called Code Red. Oliver said his brother had big money offers to sell the software he had created. But instead of monetizing it, he just made it open source code and basically gave it to the world for free because that was the fastest way to be able to create the best good with it. Life was not all computers for Bob. Not long after Code Red, Bob met Krista. Bob made you feel immediately you could feel your worth. He was present in the conversation just like you and I are right now. How did Bob talk about his work and what he did for a living and what he wanted to do? It wasn't work. It was his happiness. It was his happy place. He loved his work. He loved the opportunity to make the world a better place. Bob and Krista had their first child in 2005.

A Star Trek-themed wedding followed in Vegas. Honeynoon onSirajal 7? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, Klingon's Only. It was something that we did because it represented the two of us rather than some Napa wedding with a bunch of guests that we could care less about. By 2008, they were a family of four. He didn't treat me like I was a little kid, even though obviously I'm his kid. But he talked to me like I was an adult, and he taught me very valuable life lessons on being calm and conflict. Oh, he's so patient. Right? Yeah, he's patient. He had a very gentle parenting style. Yeah, he was really nice, I want to say. It was just like that soft voice, gentle parenting thing. Rock a vibe, babe. As the Lee family grew, so did Bob's influence in the tech world. Here he is at Mobile Coin's 2021 conference. Before I joined a CPO last I was a mobile coin advisor and investor. Financial success followed, and all that comes with it: lavish trips, VIP louanges, private parties. We would have parties or yacht parties These private jets were not an unfamiliar thing. He definitely spoiled us. Oh, there is not a point where I was not living in a luxury life.

Correct to say that money and success changed him, or it just allowed him to be who he always would have been? It gave him freedom to be more of who he was, right? And so I don't think it changed him. After 10 years of marriage, Bob and Krista split up. Generally, divorce in America equals friction of some kind. Sure. But not here? No, it actually... I think he and I became more loving towards each other. We had a whole new found respect for each other. In 2022, Bob moved to Miami but made frequent trips back to San Francisco to be with his kids. In fact, when he was killed, Bob had come to San Francisco to see Scout perform in a school play. It's difficult for her to talk about. Because that was the last time I ever saw. Now, Bob's family was talking with investigators and learning more about his final minutes. On those security videos from near the crime scene, police found something heartbreaking. Moments after he's been stabbed, Bob approaches a car, stopped at a red light, and it looks like he's asking for help. Instead, the person drives off, and a badly wounded Bob drops to the ground.

There's video of him, which you've probably seen. Actually, no. I can't bring myself to watch it yet. Well, it is tough to watch because he is stumbling down the street. He's clearly been hurt. My son watched the footage, and his response to me was, It only showed me how strong my father was. That it looked like he was trying to survive whatever had happened to him. And I trust his opinion on that one. Any evidence that would have made any difference if somebody had picked him up and taken him to the hospital? As far as surviving? Yeah. I don't think so. In life, Bob Lee's name was once known primarily to tech insiders. Now, in death, he was about to achieve a whole new level of notoriety. Elon Musk is talking about it and saying, calling you out specifically? Yes. Krista Lee was stunned. The father of her two children was gone. It was unreal. It felt like I was in a dream. It wasn't true, especially the way that he was taken from us. It just did not seem like it was reality. When you hear about Bob, you hear words like, Brilliant, innovator, visionary, selfless, right?

Murder. Not one of them. No. I mean, that just seems inconceivable. I mean, I think murder is always the last thing you expect. Police in San Francisco are investigating the stabbing death of Bob Lee. His death sent shockwaves through the tech industry. News of Bob Lee's death made national headlines. Police are trying to solve a murder mystery. It happened early Tuesday morning. That's what investigated. Especially when that dramatic video of his collapse outside the apartment building became public. It is just one of the latest high-profile crimes increased safety concerns around the San Francisco area. Reporter Sergio Quintana said many believed Bob's death was a symptom of a bigger issue in Bob's beloved San Francisco. Hey, get the med kit, please. In the midst of the pandemic, the city of San Francisco went through some changes like many cities in the United States. There is street crime. People get mugged. People get attacked sometimes in the streets. And That was the perception of San Francisco at the time, that this was a dangerous city, and this crime exacerbated that perception. Even Elon Musk joined the discussion about Bob Lee's murder, writing, Violent crime in San Francisco is horrific, and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately.

Although that clearly was not true, it made an impact. The attention on this case was immediate. For someone like Elon Musk to post this, he had just bought Twitter and had just come to San Francisco to run that company. In the post, Musk mentioned district attorney,brooke Jenkins, who had recently taken office. Elon Musk is talking about and calling you out specifically. Yes, he was basically saying that it was because of lawlessness in our city and a need to prosecute repeat offenders and tagging me in that tweet. At that point, nothing was known about who'd killed Bob Lee, whether it was a repeat offender, or whether it was a person living on the street or whether it was something else. Nothing publicly had been disclosed as far as the investigation. He had no information about that crime. It's just ratcheting up the attention for this case. With all that attention on Bob's death, his friend Ajit was left angry and shocked. How could this be allowed to happen? What is going on in San Francisco that this could happen? And just you come to these conclusions. What's the world coming to? What's the world coming to?

Yeah. And so there's a lot of anger. Like, this is a great person getting taken away from us that didn't deserve this. Krista knew Bob would never put himself in a dangerous situation. That made his murder even more puzzling. The main thing The thing that people were saying was, Oh, he must have gotten mugged. He was walking back home to his hotel. That one I did not believe because Bob never walked anywhere. He would have Ubered, especially at that time. You ever worry about him working in San Francisco and crying downtown? Never, not at all. Had Bob been approached by someone that was trying to mug him, he would have given them the shirt off his back, his wallet, his keys, his clothes. He would have said, Hey, man, let me buy you a meal. Please don't hurt Sergeant Brent Dittmer was sure from early on that the person who stabbed Bob to death wasn't after his money. There was a lot of talk that this is random, violent homeless crime in San Francisco. Could that have happened when we first get here, maybe. But very quickly, it really doesn't appear to be the case.

And he still got his watch and his wallet. He does. If that's the story people are going to run with, that is an advantage for us because the people who are responsible, we don't want to know what we know. So you leave the robbery story out there, even though you know right here, that's probably not it. Let everybody think that this is whatever's on Twitter at that time. We'll work on what actually happened. The idea of a mugging didn't seem plausible to you, but Bob being targeted, that's even harder to believe. Yes. Yeah, we were all confused. Confused and scared, especially after Krista received a mysterious text message. I heard that you were talking to the police. Please tell them to check the footage of the Millennium Tower. I'd like to remain anonymous. I fear that I will be stabbed, too. Bob's impact was discussed in all corners of Silicon Valley. You have layers of processors and ISOs. In the tech world and beyond. As his family and friends gathered for memorial services. Carlos Witt attended the service in San Francisco. People are talking about Bob, stories, crying, et cetera. But you could feel the absence of Bob everywhere.

Walking around, it was a beautiful party, and it was, again, beautiful to see everybody. But somebody wasn't there. It wasn't just minus one person. It felt like it was minus a thousand people with one person not being there. I'll record myself, too. I got myself. Hey. He just made people feel so amazing. Are you going to send this to mom? Yeah. He knew just how to help people. He was so charismatic, and he just knew how to solve any issue that he came across. His brother Oliver caught a glimpse of Bob's generosity as he handled Bob's finances after his death. Constantly, you see him helping somebody else. There was an investment in a hair salon and another investment in a restaurant. These were not investments he expected to get back. It was more of, I met this cool person who's doing this cool thing. How can I help them to do that? The answer was, I'm going to give them some money, and I probably won't get anything for it. Yeah, well, I know I won't get anything for it, right? Except the feeling that I helped somebody. Yeah. Now, investigators were trying to figure out why anyone would want Bob dead.

They had already dug up a possible lead from that security video they pulled at the crime scene. On it, you can see a white car. From some of the angles, yeah, you could tell it was a white BMW roadster. In another video where Bob lifts up his shirt, maybe to see how badly he's wounded. There's the white car again in the background. You'll see behind him this vehicle pull away from the scene, a vehicle that we determined was this white BMW Z4. A small coupe. In other videos, police saw what looked like the same white car speeding away from the area. They were able to follow the car as it got out of the Bay Bridge. Then they lost sight of it. Had the driver seen something or was the driver involved? Can't get a license number. No. But you start looking for that car on other cameras of other buildings? Yes. Sort of backtracing where it came from? Yes. How many other angles of that car you get along its trip? Probably six or seven. Can you tell who's inside? No. Then they got a break. A friend of Bob's told police that on the The night he died, Bob might have gone to a luxury high rise called Millennium Tower.

Everybody in San Francisco knows the Millennium Tower. I think so. It's famous or infamous, maybe. Well, I think the short version is a large luxury high apartment building. Like as luxury as it gets. Yeah. I think it was famous first because Joe Montana was living there, and then it became famous because it started tilting. For years, the 58-story high rise has been plagued by structural issues that caused it to lean and sink, sparking countless lawsuits from its wealthy residents. A lot of units in that building. A lot of people live there, and almost all of them have money. Yes. It was the same building mentioned in that alarming text to Krista. I heard that you were talking to the police. I fear that I will be stabbed, too. Without saying who it was they feared, the texter provided Krista Lee a clue. Please tell them to check the footage of the Millennium Tower. That was exactly what police were doing. And fortunately, the Millennium Tower had security cameras, lots of them. Sergeant Dittmer sent an investigator to pull that footage for any sign of Bob. Right away, they saw something interesting from a camera outside the building.

We saw a white BMW that matched the white BMW that was seen driving away from the scene of the killing. We run the plate, and the BMW is registered to Nema Momene. Nema Momene. Police now focused on him. There was just one problem. Is there any evidence that Nina and Bob even knew each other before that evening? Not really, no. And that's where Cazar comes into play in all of this. A true crime story never really ends. Even when a case is closed, the journey for those left behind is just beginning. Since our Dateland story air, Tracy has harnessed her outrage into a mission. I had no other option. I had to do something. Catch up with families, friends, and investigators on our bonus series, After the Verdict. Ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances with strength and courage. It does just change your life, but speaking up for these issues helps me keep going. To listen to After the Verdict, subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at datelinepremium. Com. It was late, past midnight, when they broke into the farmhouse. Never in a million years would you think that you'd see your parents house taped off by that yellow tape.

Rome. And they said, You're going to be out of being killed. They left behind a wall of blood and a clue that took a case of double murder on a long, strange trip. She looked at me and she said, I'm screwed. Murder in the Moonlight, a new podcast from Dateline. Listen to murder in the Moonlight for free starting Monday, February 17th. Or unlock new episodes right now by subscribing to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or datelinepremium. Com. Speculation about Bob Lee's murder continued to dominate the headlines. What wasn't on the news was that police now had a name to go on, Nema Momene. It was still unclear how Nema fit into their case, so Sergeant Dittmer decided to put off talking with him. My first plan at this point is to figure out who this Nema Momene is. We didn't want to go into the Millennium Tower start knocking on doors or anything like that because we don't want to tip anybody off at what is really a pretty early stage of this investigation. And maybe you're not on the right track here. That's possible. When you run him, ask people about him, learn more about him, what picture emerges of Nema Mohamedy?

Nema Mohamedy has a consulting tech business. He lives over in the East Bay. He's in the same business broadly as Bob Lee, but he's way down on the food chain below Bob. Yeah. I mean, if you could say tech is the same business, they're in the same business, I don't think they're in any way on the same level. Investigators would learn Nema was born in Iran, and at 14, he moved to the Bay Area with his mother and his sister, Khazar, his mother, Monaz Teherani. How did your son adjust to moving to the United States? Both my kids, they were so strong, and we decided when we were leaving Iran, we accepted all the difficulties we're going to face. What about your daughter? The same. She was a hardworking. She started working at the very young age, at the age of 13, when we came here. Monaz says she and the kids all worked hard and scraped by. It all seemed to pay off. By 2023, Nima and his family appeared to be doing pretty well. He had a nice white BMW. He had a couple of boats. He was talking about buying a ranch.

Eleni Balakrishnan is a criminal justice reporter for the news site Mission Local, who did some digging on Nima. People described him as being extremely generous and well-off. He had a nice loft in Emoryville, where he lived as well. His personality? Quiet, low-key. People thought he was aloof. He was a timid guy. He He would be out, but wasn't necessarily the center of the party or anything. For all the information investigators gathered on Nema, one thing was missing. Is there any evidence that Nema and Bob even knew each other before that evening? Not know. If this involves Nema and Bob, that seems maybe off a little bit because these guys aren't friends. They're not in business together. They don't even really know each other. They don't. That's where Cazar comes into play in all of this. Cazar Nima's younger sister. The two were about a year apart, and by all accounts, extremely close. Your son and your daughter have always gotten along really well. Yes. Is your son protective of your daughter? My son, very supportive. Yes, very supportive of her since the day one, since they were little kids. Nima and his sister spent a lot of time together.

If Nima was fairly muted, Khazar was anything but. It. Reporter Sergio Quintana. Khazar Momeni probably stands out because she's pretty glamorous. I mean, in San Francisco, again, you have money, but you don't wear your money. She wears her money. Cazar is also married to Dino Eliasnia, a top plastic surgeon in the Bay Area. There's this glamorous spread in a San Francisco magazine of her and her husband, Dino, who they're being photographed in this skyrise apartment overlooking the city, and she's glamorous and gorgeous. Investigators soon discovered that while Bob didn't know Nema, he knew Cazar and knew her quite well. The two seem to run in the same social circles. They'd met about eight years earlier at the Battery, an exclusive social club in San Francisco. Definitely friendly acquaintances, They texted back and forth about hanging out together, things like that. We know that she's a bit of a party girl. She and Bob Lee hang around with each other. They're in that circle of people who live in these gorgeous high-rise towers in downtown San Francisco. It was Khazar Momeni, not Nema, who lived in the glitzy Millennium Tower. Police discovered she and her husband lived in separate apartments on separate floors.

That living arrangement appeared to mirror their lifestyle and their marriage. Cazara is married, but she doesn't live with her husband. That's right. And they have some open marriage? I don't know. It certainly seems clear that they know that she sees other people. That's been described as an open marriage. Yeah, I don't know how to describe that, but her husband, I think they were open-minded in some ways. Had Bob somehow gotten into the middle of Cazar and Dino's marriage? He and Cazar clearly had a relationship. Whether this was some love triangle remained unclear. On the onset, I think some people might have been assuming that there was something more going on beyond just friendship. I mean, there's a handsome guy and there's this glamorous woman, and they're hanging around with each other at these parties. I think that was an easy assumption to make. For detectives, it all felt like a possible motive. Did you have any suspensions as to whether or not Cazara might be involved in this? I did. Certainly, that's on the table. We know that Bob knew her and didn't seem to know Mima as far as we knew. Turns out Cazar and Bob had been together just hours before he died.

Cazar Momene had spent time with Bob the day before the killing. She was at a party that included Bob, some friends, and some pharmaceuticals. It was not uncommon for Bob to use drugs. On the weekends, after his work was all completed, yeah, he enjoyed himself. Soon, the investigation would follow a trail of drugs, blood, and anger, and it would lead to a suspect, a shocking video. Up until that point, we didn't think we were going to have any video of the killing, so having something was very significant. And a high-profile trial trial. Cazara's testimony was the most waited part of the trial. There were cameras everywhere. Silicon Valley has a reputation. Among its success stories lies also a culture of extremes. Some people can code hard and play hard at a level. Carlos Witt said his friend Bob Lee was at a much higher level. It would not be weird for us to put a 100-hour weekend on a regular basis and sometimes string weeks and weeks together. So I think one of the ways that you can do that is that sometimes you need to also play hard as well to try to balance your life out.

And sometimes playing hard is staying up all night shooting pool or playing Nintendo. Something harmless. It's like wee tennis till five in the morning. Bob was just built different because he could do the parties, but he to also be one of the number one engineer in the entire planet. Police learned that sometimes, maybe frequently, that partying involved drugs. Bob was part of this scene with this array A of substances, the alphabet of drugs, K and E and G and cocaine. Yes, he did partake in parties and drugs, but he was never the guy that would get out of control. And you never thought to yourself, you're making a big mistake. No, because I never saw drug use as being abused or an addiction. However, his brother Oliver says he did worry about Bob's chemically fueled adventure. It was self-medicating. There's this narrative of Bob being this super successful guy, but if you knew him, you knew he had self-doubt, and he had anxiety. Police discovered Bob spent his last days balancing the scales of work and fun with a small circle of friends. I got a phone call from someone who played a large part in the case, Mr. Moha Zabi, who said that he had been in time with Mr. Lee the evening before his death.

During that conversation, he mentioned Khazar Momani. Bob's friend, Bo Moazabi, is a tech entrepreneur and DJ. According to So he and Cazar were with Bob at a small afternoon get-together. Their host was a guy named Jeremy Boiven. Who's Jeremy Boiven? Jeremy Boiven is a friend of Bob Lee, who is also his drug dealer. Bob and I met a few years back on vacation together. Really got to be pretty close. Jeremy was convicted of drug dealing in 2022. He didn't want to talk with me about that, but he did talk about that get-together with Bo, Bob, and Cazar. I ordered some pizzas. We partied a little bit. Some of them partied with alcohol, cocaine, lean and nitrous oxide, also known as whipets. To the uninitiated, that being me, what's a whipet? Nitrous oxide canister used to whip cream or get high if you snort the gas out of it. Were you aware that Bob was on drugs? Yeah, I knew part of Bob was having a good time. He was off work. It was not uncommon for Bob to use drugs? On the weekends, after his work was all completed, yeah, he enjoyed himself. What was Cazara's relationship with Bob?

I knew that they were friends for the past few years on and off, seeing each other casually. Nothing sexual, just actual friendship. And that day, Jeremy says he felt a connection with Cazar. She has some pretty captivating qualities, not just her physical looks, but sometimes she can be pretty funny and fun to hang out with. After an hour or so, Bo told police that Cazar stayed at Jeremy's while he and Bob left. Here they are in the elevator. It looks as though they wanted to continue the party together. Their next stop was the bar at Bob's Hotel, and later, up to his room where they started calling family and friends. The last time I spoke to him, I had missed a FaceTime call, and so I called him back, and he was with our friend Bo, and it was just sweet and loving. Hey, baby, talking about you. I miss you. To come meet up with us. At this point in time, it was already about eight o'clock at night, and the last words that we actually spoke to each other were, I love you. Good night. From Bo, police learned Bob got another call later.

This one from Nema. Bo is a witness to Bob's side of that conversation. Correct. What he hears is Bob defending himself or trying to calm down someone who's clearly pretty upset. That's right. What things does Bo overhear? Bo overhears Bob telling Nema that nothing happened, everything's okay. He wasn't there, but everything's fine. Bo told police Nema was upset with Bob. It wasn't clear why. Bo said they moved on after the call, stopping for drinks at the battery club, and then to Bo's condo. By then, it was after midnight, and Bo was ready to call in a night. Bob didn't want the party to end. Bo said that he thought Bob was going to go see Cazar, who lives at the Millennium Tower. By then, Cazar had left Jeremy's and was back home. Investigators dug frame by frame through video from the Millennium Tower, eventually finding the moment Bob arrived, just after 12: 30 AM. Then, a little more than an hour later, Bob left, and this time he wasn't alone. There's Nema Momene next to him, wearing a black beanie. It's a little weird watching the two of them walk out of the Millennium Tower together.

Yeah, it's always strange to watch someone's last moments on a video. And there was more. The two men did not go their separate ways when they left Cazara's apartment. Investigators investigators found this video of them getting into Nema's white BMW. A clearer picture of what happened that night was starting to emerge. That first moment, we want to make sure Nema is the person who drove Bob to where this killing happened We're trying to piece everything together right then. It was time for police to start tailing Nema Momene. What that surveillance would capture on video would shift the course of this investigation. I think he's showing exactly what he did. Every morning, we choose how to begin our day. This is today. I think about the people at home. They tune in because they are curious. They care about their world, and they care about each other. There's always something new to learn, whether a news event or a new recipe. When we step through the morning together, it makes the rest of the day better. We come here to make the most of today. We are family. We are today. Watch the Today Show with Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin, weekdays at 7 AM on NBC.

Now they had the final answer, or did they? Nothing has more suspense than a dateland mystery, and no one wants to wait to find out what happens next. That's why everyone needs Dateline Premium, where listening is always ad-free. You get the whole story and nothing but the story. Or do you? Yes, actually. You do. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or datelandpremium. Com. Hey, everybody. I'm Al Roker from The Today Show. Let's kickstart your wellness journey with the all new Start Today app. Everything you need for a healthier you, all in one place. Fitness challenges for all levels, meal plans that are easy and delicious, and so much more. It's built to fit your lifestyle, and our experts will guide you every step of the way. Come on, let's do this. To subscribe, download Start Today from the App Store on your Apple device now. Terms apply, cancel anytime through Apple under profile settings. Police were one step closer to figuring out what had happened to Bob Lee. Bob's friend Bo is the one who really ends up pointing you guys in the right direction. That's a huge part of this case, yes. That interview sets us on the path.

He tells you who the players are. He did. And he's the first person to identify somebody who didn't like Bob, and it was Nema. Right. That phone call Bo witnessed one end of, coupled with the video evidence connecting Nema to Bob, had turned Nema Momani into the prime suspect. Investigators still were not ready to bring him in for questioning. They did put a tail on Nema. What form does that surveillance take? You're following him or you got a tracker on his car or what? Combination of things. So initially, I write a warrant to put a tracker on his car. We go to his house, try and find this white BMW, which we don't see anywhere. We see a different a call that's registered to him, and officers start following Mr. Momenti. And what's he doing? They see him in a parking lot, and he's talking with someone we later learned as a private investigator. Nema is on the here. Keep in mind, he had not been interviewed, arrested, or charged with any crime, but he had already retained a criminal defense attorney. As he spoke with his lawyer's PI, the undercover officer entertaling him, hit record.

What do you see in that video? I think I see him pantomiming, stabbing Mr. Lee. That's Nema showing somebody else what he did. It is. Remember, Bob was stabbed twice ice in the chest. On the video, police believe Nema makes some stabbing motions toward the PI's torso. Then Nema does this. To investigators, he seemed to be demonstrating how to throw the murder weapon over that fence. A suspect reenacting the crime for your surveillance is something that doesn't happen every day. That was a first for me. It was all suggestive. But would it be enough to convince a jury or the DA? We wanted to make sure that at the point at which Momene was arrested, that we did have a solid case. We asked that the San Francisco police make sure that they collected every ounce of evidence that they could prior to that. They did find some more evidence. In this case, we were able to see texts on Bob's phone. Specifically, messages which is Cazar sent to Bob, hours after he left her home that night. Just wanted to make sure you're doing okay, because I know Nema came way down hard on you.

And thank you for being such a classy man handling it with class. Bob Lee's phone received those texts. We know Bob never read them. These are texts that Cazar sends to Bob not knowing he's already dead. That's right. So I think at that point, we knew Bob has left the Millennium Tower and gone to the place where he's killed with Nema. And then we have Cazar sending Bob messages that her brother came down way hard on him the night before. At that point, I felt comfortable and said, Okay, it's time to arrest this guy. Nine days after Bob's murder, SWAT officers arrived at Nima's condo outside San Francisco to make the arrest and execute a search warrant. So simultaneous to that, we I served warrants at Cazar Momene's apartment and her husband, Dino's apartment at the Millennium Tower. I'm looking for Joseph Joseph Nives, and I was also seeking to speak with Cazar and/or Dino to see if they would give up any an interview with us. How willing were Cazar and her husband to speak with you? Cazara said that we had to speak with her attorney, and Dino refused to even provide his name to the officers searching the apartment.

In that search, police did find a Joseph Joseph knife in Cazara's kitchen, the same brand as the murder weapon. You think Nema takes that knife from Cazara's kitchen and carries it with him when he leaves the apartment with Bob, and his plan is to stab Bob. I believe that's the case, yes. We start out with our breaking news out of San Francisco. A person accused of fatally stabbing local tech executive, Bob Lee, is under arrest. The stabbing was not random, and the killer apparently knew to leave. When you heard there was an arrest, you feel better? Yes, absolutely. I was very relieved at the arrest because at least we knew we were going to start getting answers. I was shocked. I was shocked I didn't know what to do. I became like a dead person walking. I'm sorry. You want to stop a second? Yeah, I... There's nothing harder, is there? Yeah, it was very, very difficult. The thing that still eluded police was any clear motive. Why would Nema want Bob dead? When you arrest Nema, what's your theory of the crime? The theory is he's upset with Bob over something that happened with his sister.

We don't know exactly why. We don't know exactly what happened. Cazara It was the engine that made this whole thing happen. Cazar's relationship with her brother and her relationship with Bob is what puts the two of them on a collision, of course. It had been a year and a half since Bob Lee was stabbed to death under the Bay Bridge. Now, Nima Momene, a man who barely knew Bob, was about to stand trial for his murder. He pleaded not guilty. We thought it was going to be a difficult case for various reasons. Cameras were not allowed inside the courtroom in which prosecutors Omid Talai and Dane Reinstead would present their case. The one person who can truthfully tell us what happened isn't with us. There's no live eyewitness. There's no witness. So So that allows the defendant and the defense to tell any type of fantastical story they can come up with. Prosecutors argued this was simple. Nema Momene was the last person to see Bob Lee before he was stabbed. And they had plenty of security video to prove their case. We have them on great surveillance, getting into the elevator at the Millennium, walking through the lobby, walking out to Nema Momene's car.

Either Nema is aware that there are cameras and he's concealing how furious he is at Bob, or he wasn't furious at Bob yet. Correct. He quite possibly was very furious. Bob, you're coming to be happy. Help. Prosecutors first played that 911 call now. Tell me. I need. In court, that was a painful moment for Bob's family. They had never heard that call before. The 911 call just keeps ringing in my head, being so in shock that he can't say anything I got somebody just keeps repeating over and over again. Where are you staff, man? And they played for jurors that body came video, showing officers trying to revive a close to lifeless Rob Lee. Nema Momene is driving home in his nice BMW and hoping to go on with his life like nothing ever happened. One question. Had Nema's sister and mother helped him go on with his life? That's because in those first few days, police were not able to find that white BMW. We eventually found the car about a month later at a BMW dealership where his family was attempting to sell it on his behalf. You think this is the family trying to help him dispose of evidence?

I feel confident this is one of many ways in which the family was trying to help him. Then jurors watched that undercover police video of Nema speaking with his attorney's private investigator. There. The court required Nema's mouth to be blurred, so the jury couldn't try to make out the conversation. I've never had a piece of evidence where a suspect is reenacting his or her crime Boom. Beyond the reenacting, prosecutors believe they had a powerful piece of evidence, video of the actual killing. It's low quality. Police recovered it from a building right across from the crime scene. You see two figures, and we are able to make out who those two figures are given the color of the clothing Bob and Nema Momene are wearing in the elevator. There they are at the bottom of the screen. It's hard to make out, so we put a spotlight on them. Prosecutors believe the darker figure is Bob, the lighter one is Nema. Talai says the video shows Nema lunging forward toward Bob and then throwing the knife over the fence to dispose of it. That video is pretty blurry. That's an understatement. You're confident that that's Bob and that's Nema?

I'm confident given that the car that we see the two of them get into is perfectly tracked to that exact location of the incident. While prosecutors argued the videos placed Nema at the scene, the backbone of their case was the forensics. Those DNA tests ordered on the knife had come back. 99 10% of the DNA from that handle comes back to Nema Momeni. From the blade of that knife, it comes back to Bob Lee. The state is not required to prove motive, but prosecutors wanted to address the burning question, why would Nema want to kill Bob? Khazar, how do you feel about testifying today? To answer that, they called Khazar Momeni, Bob's friend, and the defendant's sister. Khazar's testimony was the most waited part of the trial. There were cameras everywhere. Reporter Eleni Balakrishnan was in the courtroom. She's very well dressed. She showed up in court and was the star of the show. The cameras would be following her. She's dressed in all Valentino and wears these big sunglasses to cover her eyes. Through a subpoena, Cazar was forced to testify against her own brother. It It was clear she did not want to be there.

She was very soft-spoken. She looked down a lot of the time. Because Cazar refused to give a formal statement to police, prosecutors were not sure exactly what she would testify to in court. They hoped she would talk about that party at Jeremy Boyven's place, and she did. She told jurors she was high on LSD, cocaine, and nitrous oxide. After Bob He was killed. Jeremy gave her GHB, known as a date rape drug, and she willingly took it. Then, Cazar said, something horrible happened. Cazar on the stand described being on Jeremy's bed and having taken a bunch of GHB and being unable to move and that he was grabbing her, that her pants were down, and that he was slapping her. But... Prosecutor Dane Reinstead. She testified that she told Nema she had been sexually he assaulted at Jeremy Boivins. That's a pretty clear indication of motive. In fact, that tense phone call Bo witnessed between Bob and Nema was all about the alleged sexual assault. What kinds of things is Nema saying in that phone call? He's interrogating Bob. He's questioning him about what was happening at Jeremy Boyvin's place. When Bob visited Nema and Cazr at the Millennium Tower later that night, prosecutors believe Nema was furious.

We have the text messages from Cazr to Bob talking about her brother coming down way hard on Bob. It's clear that there was more hostility. Some argument or Nema yelling at Bob. Correct. But it would appear that by the time they departed, he had made nice. Prosecutors confronted Cazar with those text messages she'd sent to Bob. Her explanation as to many texts that she was high out of her mind and didn't know what she saying that that was her attempt to help her brother. On the stand, at least, Cazar insisted there was no beef between Bob and Nema. According to Cazar, everything was fine, that there had actually never been an issue between Nema and Bob. Still, prosecutors believed they had enough evidence to piece together their motive. Nema understood Cazar to have been sexually assaulted because she told him that. Comes to a conclusion that the people responsible where Jeremy Boiven and Bob Lee, and when he gets an opportunity later that night to act against one of those two people, he does. That's a very convoluted motive that Nema is angry enough at Bob to want to kill him for something Bob wasn't even present for.

Why isn't he going after Jeremy? Why is he going after Bob? That's a great question. I don't know what he planned to do with Jeremy at some point. What happened in Jeremy Boiven's apartment is not important. What Nema Momeni thinks happened in that apartment. That's what is important. Now it was the defense's turn, and they were about to challenge the state's motive and Cazars' credibility. You believe anything comes out of Cazars' mouth? No, no, no, I don't. For nearly a month, Nima Momani's mother, Monaz, watched prosecutors portray her son as a cold-blooded killer. My son is not that type of person. I have raised a very kind son. Both of my kids, they are really kind, they are very giving. And my son has not been any aggressive person to hurt someone, never. Defense attorney Sam Zangane came from Miami to represent Nema. He is innocent. The DA here had unbelievable pressure on this case. You think charging Nema is a reaction to that? I think that they jumped a gun. They found somebody, they went in, and they made an arrest. They say something happened and Bob Lee died. That's it. He insists Bob Lee's stature in the tech business added a different layer to the case.

There's powers that that are not normally in play when the decedent is the person that Bob Lee is. I call, not a regular victim, we call it victim plus. When you have someone who's in that victim plus era-That's Bob Lee. That's Bob Lee. He's victim plus squared. He sought to take apart the prosecution's case, starting with a murder weapon. The blade's this big. It's a little Fahrenheit. But you can be killed with a blade that big. Of course you can. That's not the blade you take to hurt somebody. Me. If you're in a kitchen, there's a ton of knives there, you're going to pick the smallest, weakest one? The defense went after that grainy video, prosecutors say, showed Nema stabbing Bob. There's this nest cam, which shows these two blurry dots on Main Street. They've taken that video and they have sped it up, slowed it down, changed the lighting to make something that occurred look different than what actually occurred. Smoke and mirrors a man smoking mirrors. Also not credible to the defense, that undercover police video of Nema speaking with his attorney's PI. What's happening in that video? Well, I'll tell you what's not happening in that video is that he's not pantomiming anything.

They don't have any evidence of what's going on there. So what are they going to do? They're going to assume and speculate and try to force a square peg into a round hole. And Zaneh said there was a reasonable explanation why Nema's family tried to sell a white BMW after his arrest. They have a power of attorney. They took the car to the dealership where they purchased it because he had legal bills coming. They could have junked it. They could have lit it on fire. They didn't do any of that stuff. They took it back to the dealership. According to the defense, the weakest part of the prosecution's case was the motive. What reason would Nema Momene have to want to kill Bob Lee? Their story was that Nema killed Bob Lee because Bob Lee's friend touched his sister's ass. It didn't make any sense. Two and two didn't equal four, right? Why would he go after Bob Lee for something his friend did? Nema's motive might be to take out his anger on Jeremy Boiven and not on Bob. Right, but he doesn't. The defense argued Nema was not furious with Bob at all and pointed to those security videos of Bob and Nema leaving the Millennium Tower, showing two people who looked friendly and calm.

They They didn't leave in a hurry, Josh. They went and hung out in the front of the valet, didn't appear to have any issues. Is that the video of two guys who have settled whatever dispute they had, or is that Nema concealing his anger until a time when he can take out that anger on Bob without anyone watching. Anyone watching? The fight happened on a place called Main Street. This wasn't in a little cold to sack or a little hidden place. The prosecution is like, Oh, it's under a bridge, bro. It's on a place called Main Street. It is a busy street. And in a very odd moment, even though Khazar Momene and her husband helped bankroll Nema's defense, Zankanay told jurors she had no credibility and to regard her version of what happened that night. You believe anything comes out of Cazar's mouth? No, no, no, I don't. Let me tell you why. Because she's an addict, okay? You can't ask the jury to believe something that doesn't really pass a smell test, right? On the stand, Cazar said she had sought help for her substance abuse problems and completed a rehab program. Jeremy Boivan was never called to testify.

While he admits attacking Cazar's backside, he denies ever assaulting her. Did you abuse Cazar? No. Not once. We had a physical relationship after the fact and continued to have a physical relationship for many Ten months after that. So her saying these allegations is just baseless and really unfounded. In court, Cazar acknowledged Jeremy stayed in her apartment after Bob's death. She didn't remember for how long and said it wasn't sexual. After her testimony, Jeremy claimed Cazar apologized to him for making the assault allegation. And she said, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said Yes. So to you, at least, she's admitting to lying on the witness stand. A, it's none of my business, really. Bottom line is I didn't do it. There was no sexual assault at any point. Whatever happened at Jeremy Boivan's apartment didn't matter, argued Nema's attorneys. They were about to offer a whole new theory about what happened that night. When we tell our story and we explain exactly how it transpired. It's eye-opening. Nema Momene's attorneys were prepared to turn the case upside down. While the prosecution blamed Nema, they were going to blame Bob Lee. When we tell our story and we explain exactly how it transpired, it's eye-opening.

The defense focused on Bob's partying in the days and hours leading up to his death. Bob, they said, was sleep-deprived and full of drugs and alcohol. Nema's attorneys argued a drug-fueled bender like that could have caused Bob to become violent. It's 2: 00 AM, he's in seven, eight hours, and he is still actively just partying like a rock star, which to me suggests he had no plans on sleeping and consuming, consuming. Zagunay said Bob, not Nema, was the one with a knife, and it could have come from Cazars or somewhere else. I don't think he took the knife as a weapon. Bob's doing coke. He's been doing coke for multiple days. This is what you do. You take the knife, you use the bottom to break up the bag, and then... Even Even though he pleaded not guilty, Nemo was about to admit he was responsible for Bob's death. He said it was self-defense. He's been chomping at the bit, man, for so long to be able to tell this story. Prosecutors knew a lot hung on Nema's performance on the stand. We had great evidence, like the DNA. But ultimately, if Nema Momeni is believable, credible, sympathetic-If he tells a good story, we lose.

He walks away. I think so. The three stab wounds. Reporter Sergio Quintana was in court for Nema's testimony. He went on the stand and on direct, followed what seemed to be a pretty tight script as to what to say and how the night went down. Nima said the night unfolded like this. Yes, Cazar told him Jeremy assaulted her. At first, he was upset. But when he spoke with others at that party, he concluded his sister was probably exaggerating. He denied being angry at Bob. Nema also said a couple of other things. He confirmed his sister had an open marriage, and he said he, Khazar, and Bob all did coke together before Nema and Bob left the Millennium Tower. They talked about going on to a strip club, and Nema offered to give him a ride. They start driving because they're going to go towards where the strip clubs are. That's when they had the little hiccup. Nema is like, Hey, he spilled his beer all over him. Nema told jurors he pulled over to that area underneath the Bay Bridge to help clean up the mess. That's when Bob noticed something in the back seat.

He found some whipet canisters back there because Khazar had left it in his car. He did a few hits, took a few bumps, and then got out of the car. He thought he was going to puke. Nema went, they're outside. And then that's when the conversation went from normal to adversarial. Nema said he made a joke, a bad one, he admitted. He was like, Well, why would someone like you with a family be out here? Why wouldn't you just be with them, right? Instead of trying to go to some strip club. And that, apparently, according to Nema Momene, enraged Bob Lee. At some point, Bob produces a knife from his jacket, and he lunges at Nema Momene. And Nema manages to redirect the knife. The way he tells it on the stand is really a glossover. He barely even mentioned that he happened to have tapped him twice in the chest, right? Nema even had an explanation about why he threw the knife over the fence and drove away. He thought Bob Lee was fine. It seemed from his testimony that he didn't even realize that Bob Lee was injured. The defense team asks, Well, why did you toss the knife?

And I said, Well, so he couldn't get to it afterwards. Defense attorneys were prepared to show your jurors exactly how they claim Bob attacked Nema. We had a digital animation made. That's Nema on the right, wearing the beanie. Bob's on the left with the knife. He swathed tongue, which is what our animation shows, that it was a swinging motion. The defense said it was at this moment that Nema grabbed Bob's arm and pushed the knife toward him. That's how Bob got stabbed in the chest. It shows him walking backwards with what appears to be his hands up in the air, and then goes to the other side of the sidewalk, tracks in the nordly direction. It shows him bending down, picking up the knife, and then throwing it over the fence. And according to the defense, that's how Nema's DNA got on the knife handle. Nema's attorneys had hoped to play that animation in trial. The judge did not allow it. That is the most far-out story I think I've ever heard in my life. Bob's brother Oliver watched the trial and thought Nema's story was ridiculous. You saw Bob on drugs. Did he become a violent, angry guy when he was using drugs?

No. He would tend to be more outgoing like when he was on drugs, but he would never be violent. So when you heard that at trial? Absolutely insanity. It is the most opposite thing of what Bob was. I thought he He gave a pathetically comical story that made no sense. Then, prosecutor Talai cross-examined Nema. I had a strategy coming into the cross-examination. I am trying to provoke him, and within about 5, 10 minutes, I could tell he wasn't going to be able to control himself. There was multiple attempts by the prosecutor to try to poke holes in his story, and he did hang on to dear life to that story. You could see on the stand that his nature is to get a little combative and will turn and start asking you questions of what's going on. Even Nema's own attorney admits his client lost his temper during cross-examination. The prosecutor, to his credit, really quickly got under his skin. The same guy that had been calling him a coward in the dirt bag for 18 months. But here's what I'll tell you. His testimony didn't change. It also doesn't make any sense. What doesn't make sense?

Why don't you tell me what you didn't... What? Bob attacks him, but Nema doesn't realize that he stabbed him. Then Bob walks away, and then I threw away this knife that he tried to use on me, doesn't ask for an ambulance. That's not the most credible story. Well, I mean, listen, leaving the knife within a few feet of the scene is maybe subjective of someone that is panicking. I don't think it's as cut as dry and you guys are making it out the scene at all. I don't, respectfully. Respectfully, to me, those are the actions of someone who knows that they did something wrong and is trying to avoid responsibility. Yeah, but then why would you leave the knife at the scene? Why wouldn't you call the police and say, Someone tried to kill me and I had to defend myself? Well, when you're dealing with an immigrant like Nema, someone that is an average Joe, and then the person that you're claiming to try to kill you is Bob Lee, probably not something you want to get yourself into. Nema's attorneys thought their case was strong enough to sway the jury, and they still had one last card to play.

The defense attorney, Sam Zongane, says, Look, that's the knife. Very dramatic. Jury had heard two different accounts about what happened in the early morning hours of April fourth, 2023. In one of them, Nema Momene was the attacker. In the other, he was the victim. During his closing arguments, defense attorney Sam Zanganeh had one more surprise. From a strategic decision, we held off, we didn't talk about it, we entered it in evidence. Reporter Sergio Quintana was in the courtroom when the defense defense played a new security video. The video is outside the battery, and it's of Bo and Bob, and they walk out onto the street. Bob does a motion where he scoops something and then does this whole thing. The defense told the jury Bob was doing cocaine using a small object. The defense attorney, Sam Zongane, says, Look, look at the thing that he's Look, it's about as long as what we know is the murder weapon, and he's using it to do... That's it. That's the knife. Very dramatic. The defense said this was proof Bob had a knife that night, not Nema. That looks to me like a knife. You're convinced that's the knife that eventually became the murder weapon?

What else would it be? Because nothing else was recovered that looked like that on him. Nothing. This is not some TV legal show. You knew this was coming. We We've watched a video from the battery. We've watched hundreds of hours of video. You could watch that video a thousand times, and you will never see a knife. No matter how many times you get in a jury's face and yell, that's the knife. That's not Bob Lee doing cocaine off the knife that ended up being the murder weapon. That's correct. That's not Bob Lee with the knife. That just happens to be a Joseph Joseph knife that Kazaar Momeni had in her place. Bo told us he never saw Bob with a knife that night or ever. What would jurors believe? As they filed into the deliberation room, all everyone could do was wait and wait. You feel confident? I have had my heart broken in this town before, so confidence is always going to be limited on anything. First day goes by, there's no verdict. You're not worried. Correct. Second day, third day, You're okay. Correct. You didn't answer as quickly that thing. Around the fifth, sixth day, which was the deadline that the judge had previously given the jury for when their service would be done.

It's at that point in time that I'm a little concerned. Six days went by. Still no verdict. On the sixth day, as we're all waiting there, we see some odd things with this jury because they go to lunch early and then they come back and then they go on their afternoon break, and we see one juror sitting with his head down like this, two benches away from us. We're the media, right? We can't get video of him because we're not allowed to interact with the jurors. But we can see him sitting by himself with his head down. The rest of them, they leave the building. I thought that it was going to be a mistraught. You did? Yeah. I thought that if they didn't come to a decision on that day, they were going to hang. I thought that that's what it was going to be. Finally, after seven days of deliberations, juror sent word They had reached a decision, but it was late in the day. Everyone would have to return the next morning. How did you sleep that night? I didn't. Honestly, I threw up a couple of times that morning. You got to be thinking to yourself, why has it taken so long and what does that mean?

All of that. I don't think anyone slept that night. I just remember being very on edge and just overly anxious. The hallway was packed as prosecutors and Bob's family made their way into the tense courtroom. I find myself getting the most nervous. You're powerless. You're sitting there and you're waiting. You've done all you can do. I've done everything I can do. And perhaps it wasn't enough. Nema Momene was found not guilty of first-degree murder. The moment when I heard not guilty for first-degree, I just felt my stomach drop, and I felt like a ringing in my ear and that I was going to pass out. Bob Lee's children were sitting right behind me as that verdict was read, and I wanted them to be able to walk out and know that their father's life wasn't lost in vain. Well, the jury wasn't done. The verdict for second-degree murder? Guilty. Second-degree. You okay with that? Yeah, absolutely. It was such a relief that they had come to the decision to have justice for Bob, and we think it is justice for Bob. When the verdict came in, you absorb it. I wasn't happy with it. I think the jury...

I mean, I don't think they got it right. Nima Momani will face 16 years to life when he's sentenced. He plans to appeal the conviction. His mother spoke after the verdict. But this is not a fair trial, and we will stand and we will continue. We are strong. We have been in a difficult time together. I was hoping for my dad to get justice, but also it was a really bitter, sweet feeling because I was waiting for him to get... I was waiting for the murderer, obviously, to get what he deserved. But also it really sucked to know that no matter what the verdict was going to be, I was never going to get my dad back. The Lee family say they plan to sue the Momenees in civil court for wrongful death. What they did to my children alone is unforgivable. Krista sees every day how much Scout and serious miss their dad. This is not the way that Bob Lee should have died ever. He should have died an old man, a more successful man. The murderer robbed this world of a great mind. I will never, ever forgive this family for what they did to him.

That's all for this edition of Dateland. Check out our Talking Dateland podcast. Josh Mankowitz and Blaine Alexander will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the Dateland feed wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you again next Friday at 9: 00 8: 00 Central. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News. Good night. A true crime story never really ends. Even when a case is closed, the journey for those left behind is just beginning. Since our Dateland story aired, Tracy has harnessed her outrage into a mission. I had no other option. I had to do something. Catch up with families, friends, and investigators on our bonus series, After the Verdict. Ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances with strength and courage. It does just change your life, but speaking up for these issues helps me keep going. To listen to After the Verdict, subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at datelinepremium. Com.