Alleged killer of Cash App's Bob Lee on film reenacts killing

Nima Momeni, the suspected killer of Cash App founder Bob Lee, was filmed reenacting knife movements ahead of his upcoming trial, according to new prosecutors' documents.

The incident, filmed by a police sergeant, allegedly occurred before Momeni's arrest on April 13, 2023, while he was speaking to a private investigator in a public parking lot.

According to text messages to be revealed at trial, Momeni also believed Lee was involved in an “attempted rape” of Momeni's sister, Khazar Momeni – although friends and Khazar Momeni denied that allegation.

Momeni has been in custody for a year and a half, charged with the murder of Lee, who was killed on April 4, 2023. His legal team has indicated that they will argue in the upcoming trial that he stabbed Lee in self-defense during a fight in which both men were holding the knife. The trial is scheduled to begin on September 18.

Prosecutors point out, however, that the alleged reenactment of the incident on video shows “three clearly identifiable stabbing motions” and not a struggle over a knife. This, prosecutors say, along with Momeni's alleged belief that Lee was involved in an alleged sexual assault on Momeni's sister, calls into question the self-defense claim. Momeni's text messages after the murder, prosecutors say, also indicate he was not acting in self-defense.

According to witnesses, Khazar Momeni and Lee were together at Jeremy Boivin's house in the early morning of April 3, 2023, less than 12 hours before Lee's murder. Lee and another friend left the house while Khazar Momeni and a friend named Arana Villegas were using drugs such as GHB together at Boivin's house, according to witnesses.

According to prosecutors and in police interviews, Villegas said she fainted and woke up to Khazar Momeni crying and changing clothes. She called her brother and husband to pick her up.

This, according to prosecutors, set the stage for Nima Momeni's hostility toward Lee, who was not present: Momeni began questioning Lee “aggressively” in a video call about “the girls taking their clothes off in Boivin's house,” and then questioned Villegas in a similar manner. Both assured Momeni that nothing had happened, witnesses say.

But in later text messages, Momeni wrote to his sister that he had “begun preparing the rape case against both of them” – which gave prosecutors to understand that he believed Lee and Boivin were involved in the alleged assault. He also allegedly berated his sister via text message for causing trouble. Khazar Momeni called Nima Momeni “fucking psychotic” and told him: “[y]you're scaring me.”