Momeni, wearing vivid orange clothes, mentioned nothing extra through the quick listening to, which was attended by a number of members of Lee’s household.
Dueling information conferences given by the prosecution and the protection after the proceedings supplied a glimpse into how a case could play out.
Canny mentioned she had sufficient proof to show Momeni’s innocence. She additionally sought to solid doubt on a video that prosecutors say reveals the second when Momeni allegedly stabbed Lee.
“I don’t assume you possibly can see something within the video,” she mentioned.
At a separate information convention an hour later, San Francisco District Lawyer Brooke Jenkins mentioned that her workplace believes “there’s video footage linked to this crime” whereas declining to debate specifics.
Jenkins mentioned she took subject with the postponement as a result of greater than 20 members of Lee’s household had been current within the courtroom.
“They’ve undergone important trauma in dropping Mr. Lee already,” she mentioned. “And these households wish to see these instances transfer ahead by means of the court docket course of expeditiously.”
Momeni was arrested almost two weeks after the early morning assault on Lee, who was discovered April 4 affected by a number of stab wounds in a residential neighborhood close to downtown. The killing of the well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur shocked town and was initially seized upon by conservative media shops and a few tech executives, together with Elon Musk, who baselessly solid it as symptomatic of a metropolis overrun by random road crime.
For the previous 13 years, Momeni has owned a San Francisco Bay Space consulting firm referred to as Increase IT, in response to his LinkedIn profile. It’s not but clear how Lee and Momeni knew one another, although Jenkins mentioned Lee knew Momeni’s sister.
Prosecutors say the two males had been in one another’s firm hours earlier than the killing.
Based on court docket paperwork, Lee had been consuming with pals, together with Momeni’s sister, on April 3. Momeni later confronted Lee in a metropolis resort room, prosecutors allege, demanding to know whether or not his sister had been doing medicine or something inappropriate, which Lee mentioned was not the case. Round 8:30 that evening, Momeni went to his sister’s residence at a luxurious high-rise within the metropolis’s downtown, and Lee arrived there 4 hours later, in response to prosecutors.
The 2 left the residence in Momeni’s white BMW round 2 a.m., stopping in a darkish, secluded space the place prosecutors say video reveals them exiting the automotive. The video reveals a person who seems to be Momeni abruptly shifting towards somebody showing to be Lee, prosecutors wrote in court docket paperwork. Minutes later, an injured Lee was captured on a surveillance digital camera strolling away. Police later recovered a four-inch kitchen knife, which appeared to have blood on it, in a car parking zone close to the place Lee was discovered, prosecutors mentioned.
On April 13, Momeni was arrested at his residence in Emeryville, a suburb simply east of San Francisco.
Lee, 43, and a father of two, was chief product officer at MobileCoin, a cryptocurrency firm. In interviews with The Washington Submit, pals described him as a warmhearted and beneficiant pal who stayed humble regardless of his success and used his abilities to assist individuals.
He’d additionally labored on Android at Google earlier than working to assist small companies with Sq. and launching CashApp, which has turn into some of the well-liked cell cost apps, enabling individuals to immediately ship each other cash.
Neighbors have described Momeni as an affable and gregarious neighbor who was beneficiant with invites to events and rides on his sailboat.
Final summer season, Momeni was cited on suspicion of battering a girl at his Emeryville residence, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, citing court docket data. Momeni was launched and Alameda County prosecutors declined to pursue the misdemeanor battery cost, in response to the Chronicle.
Responding to the quotation, Canny mentioned that prosecutors didn’t file costs within the case and Momeni was not arrested. She referred to as the studies “salacious.”
“It’s type of a nonissue,” she mentioned. “It wouldn’t even be admissible.”
