SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Cash App founder Bob Lee had multiple “party drugs” in his system when he was slain, according to a San Francisco coroner’s autopsy and toxicology report obtained by KRON4 Tuesday.
A chief forensic toxicologist for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner completed a toxicology test on Lee using blood samples. The blood tests detected: cocaine; ketamine and norketamine, also known as “Special K”; alcohol; and Levocetirizine, an antihistamine.
“There’s a lot of drugs in Bob Lee’s system. I mean Bob Lee’s system is like the Walgreens of recreational drugs,” defense attorney Paula Canny said.
District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said, “Whatever that toxicology test may show, Mr. (Nima) Momeni is guilty of murder.”
Jenkins said a tactic often used by defense attorneys is to smear a homicide victim’s character. “Regardless of whether somebody has, or has not done drugs, that does not give someone a license to kill them,” Jenkins told reporters gathered at the courthouse Tuesday.
The 43-year-old tech executive called 911 at 2:36 a.m. on April 4 and told dispatchers that someone stabbed him in the chest, the autopsy report states. San Francisco police officers found Lee bleeding from three stab wounds, unconscious, and lying in a street at 365 Main Street.
Paramedics rushed Lee to San Francisco General Hospital where surgeons battled to save his life. “The subject was found to be pulseless and massive transfusion protocol began. The subject then underwent an emergency thoracotomy. The thoracotomy revealed two injuries to the heart,” the autopsy report states.
Lee died on an operating table and he was declared deceased at 6:49 a.m., according to the report. His death was classified as a “homicide stabbing,” the report states.
The defense and prosecutors both said they had not yet received a copy of the autopsy and toxicology report from the Chief Medical Examiner.
Jenkins told reporters Tuesday, “It bothers me that it was provided to you before it was provided to us. He has a family, he has children, who should not have to learn about these things through the press.”
Canny said the toxicology report will impact the case. Canny said, “Every recreational drug that a person could take was in (Bob Lee’s) system. That’s crazy that someone is running around on cocaine, ketamine. He didn’t die of a drug overdose. But put on your thinking cap. What happens when people take drugs? What do drug people act like? Not themselves … kind of losery, and make bad decisions and do bad things.”
In the hours leading up to Lee’s violent death, he spent hours hanging out with Khazar Elyassnia and friends drinking in luxury hotels and apartments, prosecutors wrote in court documents.
One of the hangouts happened inside an apartment on Mission Street near Van Ness Avenue, court documents show. The apartment is home to a suspected drug dealer who was once arrested for possessing cocaine, ecstasy, acid, and mushrooms, according The San Francisco Standard.
A witness told investigators that Elyassnia’s brother, 38-year-old Nima Momeni, confronted Lee after the group of friends had left the apartment and returned to Lee’s hotel room. “(Momeni) was questioning (Lee) regarding whether his sister was doing drugs or anything inappropriate,” court documents state.
Lee tried to reassure Momeni that nothing inappropriate happened.
Around 2 a.m., Lee and Momeni left Elyassnia’s apartment together in a BMW, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said Momeni was secretly armed with a knife, drove his unsuspecting victim to a dark and secluded area of Main Street near the Bay Bridge, and stabbed Lee in the heart. Days later, detectives arrested Momeni at his Emeryville home and he was charged with one count of murder.
Jenkins declined to say if Lee, Elyassnia, and Elyassnia’s husband were tangled in a “love triangle.”
Lee was an admired, wealthy, and successful figure in the Bay Area tech industry. He was a father of two, chief product officer of cryptocurrency company MobileCoin, and the former CTO of Square.
Canny said her client is not a murderer and illegal narcotics is a theme to the backstory. She told News Nation, “There is a huge backstory to this. More will be revealed later. Who would like to see their sister, who they are super protective of, potentially be drugged? Nobody. Any good brother would be upset about it.”
Jenkins said we will never know if Momeni was under the influence of drugs on the day of the homicide because he was not arrested until nine days later.
In court documents, prosecutors stated that surveillance videos recorded images of Lee and Momeni together when Lee was stabbed to death.
Canny said the surveillance videos are too grainy to identify who was recorded on camera, nor see what happened. “Of course they say he did it, that’s what prosecutors and police officers do. The video that I’ve seen, you can’t tell who is in the video. The video that I’ve seen doesn’t depict what they are saying. I don’t think he is guilty of the crime of murder,” Canny said.
“There isn’t enough evidence. There’s no malice, there’s no premeditation, there’s no intent,” Canny said.
Momeni made his third court appearance Tuesday afternoon, but he did not enter a plea. His arraignment was postponed for a third time. He will remain incarcerated in a San Francisco jail with no bail.
“We believe he is both a flight risk and a public safety risk,” Jenkins said.
Lee is survived by his ex-wife, two daughters, father, and brother. The district attorney said Lee’s family plans to continue attending every court appearance for Momeni as they wait for justice.
“Bob Lee was somebody who was loved tremendously by his family and by his friends,” Jenkins said.
