Khazar Momeni walks into court in a blue dress. She is now being sworn in by the clerk.
"The first question by prosecutors: "When as it that you learned that your brother had killed Bob Lee?”
"My brother was not the one that killed Bob," she said.
When asked if she has learned about the defense's narrative about the case, she said she has stopped watching the news.
"The day after Bob died, did you text your brother saying the Bob thing hit hard," asked the prosecution. Khazar replied tha the did no recall that message.
Khazar texted her brother at 10:15 p.m. onApril 4 about Lee's death, says the prosecution.
When asked about messages sent by her brother, Khazar says "I wasn't doing well, I wouldn't remember these." She said she was intoxicated that night.
The prosecution has now put the April 4 text exchange between Khazar and Nina Momeni on a screen. "Your brother's response...starts by saying I don't know what he ended up doing at the bar of trip club," said the prosecutors about Nima Momeni's text.
Khazar, in response to questions about her recollection of April 3 and 4, says she has a patchy recall of those days as she was "partying.”
Khazar now tells the prosecutor that on April 3 she was using cocaine, whip-its and other drugs, including LSD and the date rape drug GHB. On April 4 she said she used whip-its throughout the day.
Khazar said she learned about Lee's death around 2 p.m. on April 4. "She said you too were the only people who hung out with him," she said her friend said to her.
"I didn't think I could ever smile again. I've never dealt with death before," she continued.
The prosecutor is now returning to the texts between Khazar and her brother, who texted her he wanted to pursue a rape case against Jeremy Boivin and the DJ Bo.
"My brother picked me up and asked me what had happend at Jeremy Boivin's house" she said.
Prosecutor now says that Momeni then texted Khazar "that was a really low point you took us to today." In another message Momeni wrote: "I'll help start the case against these guys, but you
up,
all of us over...gonna have to work your way out of this yourself."
But, according to the prosecutor, her response to these messages was about "strip club? Rape case? Nima you're
phsycotic at times.”
Khazar is now relaying that building a rape case is hard to do and so sent the message questioning the rape case her brother was talking about.
During a break, Khazar and her attorney wait outside of court.
We are back from a quick break and the prosecution continues its questioning of Khazar Momeni.
The first question posed to Khazar by the prosecution is about messages seeming to state she was conflicted about her brother.
In another message read aloud by the prosecutor Khazar wrote to her brother "you scare me.”
Again, Khazar says she does not remember sending many of these message.
The prosecutor then reads aloud another series of messages to her brother, who did not respond: "It's really hurting my feelings. We are not perfect, but I just saw him last night. It hurts. I am hurt baby. You can't be made again.”
Khazar responds on the stand that while she does not recall these texts, they don't make a lot of sense.
Now the prosecution is speaking about more texts between Khazar and her brother on April 5 at 7:38 a.m. Khazar says that she was high at that time too. She was continually taking whip-its she got from Jeremey Boivin, Lee's alleged drug dealer.
"Yes he brought me a tank of" whip-its, she said of Boivin, in response to a question from the prosecution. Boivin came to her house just after Lee and Momeni left early on April 4.
When the prosecutor asks about why Khazar invited Boivin, who she'd told her brother had sexually assaulted her, to her house the defense objects. Now both legal teams are meeting with the judge.
"Why you invited Mr Boivin to your apartment ten hours after saying you were sexually assaulted," asked the prosecution.
"Due to the hardships I had as a child and the abuse," she said, she finds it hard to believe people will harm her. "I sometimes go back to my abuser," she said.
The prosecution has now asked if she continues to see Boivin in a romantic capacity. Khazar denied this, but then the prosecutor asked if he came to her recent birthday. When asked if Boivin is her drug dealer, she simply said she did not want to incriminate anybody.
"How frequently do you see Mr. Boivin?" asks the prosecutor. Khazar responds, that she does not see him often as "he only provides certain services.”
"I do not see him socially," Khazar says. "I blocked him.”
The prosecutor now turns to when Khazar found out her brother was accused of killing Lee. "Where you trying to figure out what it was that had happened," he asks. "Where you specially asking your brother questions abbot what had happened with Bob.”
Khazar responds that she asked her brother questions because a friend said she and him were the last to see Bob. "Im going to get to the bottom of this and find out what happened to Bob," she texted her brother. She also asked Momeni where she dropped off Lee.
"I'll ask or the cops will," she later texted Momeni, says the prosecutor. But Khazar responds that she does not recall the message and explains it away as some kind of sibling chit chat.
"I talked to the attorney today about your overdose and attempted rape case," he responded. She then texted Momeni: "Lol, you dumb
, Bob never touched me. No one did.”
On the stand now Khazar says she has not said she was not assaulted, but says she didn't want to talk about what happened.
"This is not the real me talking, I was under the influence...I don't usually threaten to call the cops on my brother," she says on the stand. "I exaggerate and get dramatic. I may have said this, it's possible.”
Khazar and her brother did not speak for three days after this exchange, says the prosecutor.
Khazar says that sometimes they get into fights and block one another. But the prosecutor responds by asking why in the preceding months there were no such gaps.
When asked if she speaks to her family about the case, Khazar said at first yes. But she has not spoke to her brother. "I haven't heard his voice," she said of her brother since his arrest. "I miss it."
"I used to when everything came out and they were accusing my brother of this," she said about reading news about the case, which she cried over.
Actually, she nows says she spoke to her brother a month ago. "We talk often, as much as we can. It's not easy for him to reach me," she says.
Khazar now testifies that she has not spoken to anyone about the case, even her mother.
She says she has only met with her brother's legal team regarding financial matters, but not to talk about the case.
"I want to see that the billing information is up to date," she said. "We as a family are taking care of this...we have paid a portion of it," she said about her and her husband paying for her brother's legal team.
Khazar now says that SFPD's homicide investigator called her to tell her that if she wanted to speak with police about any sexual assault she could. But Khazar says she never called anyone.
During the lunch break the prosecution called Khazar to ask if she wanted to say anything about the case before she testified, said the prosecutor.
Now the prosecutor is asking her why did you choose to never speak to anyone about what happened to Lee after telling your brother you wanted to get to the bottom of the case. Khazar responded that she was following her lawyer's advice.
Again, both legal teams are now having a private conversation with the judge.
Khazar, meanwhile, sits silent on the stand.
"I want to ask you now about your relationship with your brother," says the prosecution.
"I look up to him," she says about Nima Momeni.
"He's always there for me," she says. "Just as protective as any other brother would feel.”
In the months leading up to Lee's death, how often did you see your brother, the prosecution is asking. She says they hung out often. Khazar says they would hike together, they would have dinner. "We saw each other often," she said.
"Would you party together," said the prosecution. "Yes," she responded.”
Do you recall in February 2023, asks the prosecutor, when you were angry with your brother after he contacted your drug dealer and asked them not to give you drugs? She responded that he could have done something like that.
"You told the dealer not to sell me any more Xanax," she texted him, according to a text presented by the prosecution. "Nima gave me a lot of space to be myself and explore," she said in relation to his protectiveness.
Now the prosecution is talking about the two apartments Khazar and her husband have at the Millenium Tower. "He moved out of that unit," she says about their second unit on the 29th floor.
Now Khazar is testifying about meeting Bob Lee through friends about eight years ago. They met at the Battery. When Lee was in town before his death, the pair had texted to meet up, she says.
Initially, they met April 2 when Lee came over to her house around midnight, she says. There were a few other people over including Nima Momeni and her friend Lis.
Khazar says that the woman who helped her leave Boivin's house on April 3 was also at her house on April 2.
Court is now over for the day until Monday.
@jonahowenlamb
sfstandard.com
