Attorneys for Nima Momeni, the accused killer of tech executive Bob Lee, have requested to have the murder case moved from San Francisco, where they suggested Momeni would not get a fair trial because the city’s large tech population saw Lee as a “celebrity.”
They also suggested today, after a hearing to set a trial date, that a San Francisco jury could be biased against Momeni after new photos apparently purchased by the San Francisco Standard and published this week showed Momeni dressed in an orange jumpsuit in his jail cell.
“This was a hit job, and there’s going to be ramifications,” said Saam Zangeneh, Momeni’s Florida-based attorney.
Zangeneh added: “What they did, purchasing pictures that they knew were not supposed to be taken, were not supposed to be [legal], … I think there’s civil liability. I think there’s partial criminal liability.”
The Standard‘s editor-in-chief, Julie Makinen, said in a statement that a freelance photographer with permission to take photos inside the jail got clearance from Momeni to have his photo taken.
“We contacted Momeni’s legal team prior to publication, and they did not raise objections or concerns about the publication of the images,” Makinen added. “The Standard believes the images were entirely newsworthy.”
In the photos, Momeni is smiling through the glass window of his cell, and appears to be posing for the photos — but Zangeneh insisted this was not the case, that the photos were “happenstance,” and Momeni did not agree to be photographed. Momeni’s walls are lined with art, and he has books, like the biography of Napoleon and a psychology book, on his desk.
“The article, coupled with those pictures, is one of the most disgusting things that I’ve seen in a case where a defendant is innocent until proven guilty,” said Bradley Cohen, another member of Momeni’s legal team.
Cohen said he had never seen an instance where a photographer was permitted into a jail pod to take photos of a defendant before trial — and said that the cameraman had been told not to photograph individuals.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Loretta Giorgi, who is hearing the case, seemed to agree with Momeni’s attorneys.
“I saw that, and the moment I saw it, I notified the sheriff. And they are looking into all of it,” Giorgi said in court. Giorgi said that internal and external investigations would follow.
The sheriff’s spokesperson, Tara Moriarty, said a reporter and photographer from the LA Times had been permitted into the jail for a story on administrative separation cells.
“Regrettably, the LA Times photographer violated our established media rules, thereby unethically violating the conditions imposed, which were put in place to protect the security and privacy of those incarcerated,” Moriarty said. She added that the Sheriff’s Office “condemns such actions unequivocally, as they compromise the mutual trust between law enforcement agencies and the media … the well-being of incarcerated individuals, and the integrity of information shared with the public.”
The photographer, for his part, told the San Francisco Chronicle that he had cleared his photographs with a jail representative.
Momeni allegedly stabbed Lee in the street in April, and has been in jail since his arrest on April 13. The killing initially sparked outrage in the city over out-of-control crime, as Lee was found alone and bleeding out in the street the night of the stabbing.
But it later became clear that Momeni and Lee knew each other, and prosecutors have suggested that the two men had argued about Lee’s relationship with Momeni’s sister, Khazar Momeni.
Momeni’s defense attorneys filed two motions today in court: One to change venue, and another demanding a hearing for prosecutors to explain a violation of a court order. They said that prosecutors have not yet released Momeni’s vehicle to his family, despite a court ruling demanding they do so.
The two motions will be heard at a status conference on Jan. 25. A trial date was tentatively set for March 15.
Zangeneh said that the motion to change venue was only sped up by the release of Momeni’s photos, suggesting that the team had already been planning to ask that the trial be moved out of San Francisco due to the massive tech influence here, and Lee’s position as a well-known founder of CashApp and executive of other companies.
“I think that Bob Lee is akin to a celebrity in the tech sector, and a vast majority of San Franciscans are part of that industry,” Zangeneh said. “If a Los Angeles Laker is the victim of a homicide, you think that the defendant would be able to get a fair trial in LA? I don’t think so.”
Only about 14 percent of San Francisco residents work in tech.
Momeni’s attorneys were also furious about the release of the photos, and while taking questions from the press, refused to take any from the San Francisco Standard reporter who was in court today.
Zangeneh even went so far as to suggest a connection between Lee and Michael Moritz, the owner of the Standard.
“I’m not sure if there’s a nexus between Bob Lee’s family and Big Tech and the San Francisco Standard,” Zangeneh said. “And if there’s some sort of, like, marriage that’s going on here to be able to influence the jury — there may be, but I’ll tell you what, we’re going to look into it.”
This is truly preposterous. All communities have more and less well-known members. We do not ship cases involving them out to Turlock. More important, I’ve served on SF juries. I can tell you there are not many techies on them. More retired municipal workers than anything.
I was surprised myself to see those pics. Maybe not illegal, but a series of ethical lapses and questionable portrayals of notifications and permissions.
The deteriorating ethics of The San Francisco Standard is abhorrent–a blend of yellow journalism and billionaire megaphone propaganda politics. Storyteller Michael Moritz is using his wealth to manipulate readers and voters while obscuring his financed networks’ activities a la Rothschild. Industry tycoons and financiers cultivating their vision of the future and controlling reality for the rest of us is an old story and very undemocratic. Readers beware of The San Francisco Standard! For another recent example, just look at their article, “Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan Is Organizing San Francisco’s Moderate Political Agenda.” There they collude with a political group founded by their own CEO, Griffin Gaffney, and funded by Michael Moritz, owner of The San Francisco Standard, called TogetherSF, without anywhere in the article disclosing their association with the organizers at Tan’s political organizing event, in clear violation of their own Standards & Ethics Policy. When they were challenged on this ethical lapse, their editor-in-chief, Julie Makinen, doubled-down and refused to inform readers of their hidden hand in creating the “news” that they then themselves “report on” as The San Francisco Standard embarks on its mission to transform San Francisco in the more conservative image of its creator and owner. That is not news. That’s manipulative political perspectival propaganda posing as news which abuses the trust of its readers and discredits itself as a news organization worthy of the respect of readers.
I thought “tech bias” would work the other way, that Momeni would garner sympathy from the jury pool for putting a drug addled tech warlord out of our collective misery.
Momeni would have been far better served if he had a public defender representing him. I just hope, for his sake, that these guys agreed to represent him for free.
Where will there not be some form of bias? Guantanamo?