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Before imposing the sentence, San Francisco Superior Court Judge
Alexandra Gordon rejected Momeni’s request for a new trial. His
attorneys have said they plan to appeal.
Members of Lee’s family addressed the court on Tuesday,
including his 18-year-old daughter, Scout Lee, who spoke
directly to Momeni.
“You did not just end his life, you ended an entire future built
around a man,” she told Momeni, according to media reports.
Momeni, wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, maintained that he
acted in self-defense. He told Lee’s family that he understood
their loss.
“Unfortunately, we have completely different understandings of
what transpired,” Momeni said.
Lee, a renowned tech mogul, was found staggering on a deserted
downtown street, dripping a trail of blood and calling for help.
Lee, 43, later died at a hospital.
Prosecutors said Momeni planned the attack on Lee, driving him
to an isolated spot under the Bay Bridge and stabbing him three
times, including once to the heart, with a knife he took from
his sister's kitchen. They said Momeni was angry with Lee for
introducing his younger sister to a drug dealer she says gave
her GHB and other drugs and then sexually assaulted her.
But Momeni testified on the stand that Lee was the one who
attacked him with a knife, angry after the tech consultant
chided him about spending more time with his family instead of
searching for a strip club that night. Momeni, who studies
martial arts, said he didn't realize he had fatally wounded Lee
or that Lee was even hurt.
Lee had created mobile payment service Cash App and was the
chief product officer of the cryptocurrency MobileCoin when he
died. He had recently moved to Miami from the San Francisco Bay
Area, where his ex-wife Krista Lee lives with their two
children, and had returned to California for a visit.
Jurors in the end rejected a charge of murder in the first
degree, which required prosecutors prove that Momeni acted
deliberately, willfully and with premeditation. Murder in the
second degree does not require premeditation.
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