Dateline NBC - Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Josh Mankiewicz and Blayne Alexander sit down to talk about Josh's episode "Under the Bay Bridge." When tech mogul Bob Lee was stabbed to death in San Francisco, it seemed to be another example of big-city crime. Investigators quickly learned the crime was far more personal, but would their theory of what actually took place put Bob Lee’s accused killer behind bars? Blayne and Josh discuss what they think the security video of Lee's last moments really shows and what it means to "code hard, play hard." Plus, they answer some of your audio questions.Listen to the full episode of "Under the Bay Bridge" on Apple: https://apple.co/4hQU1J3Listen to the full episode on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/16ZYQRrdSMeklpXLnbU7ch

Hi everyone. It's Blaine Alexander and we are talking Dateline. I'm joined today by Josh Mankiewicz to discuss his episode, Under the Bay Bridge. Now, if you haven't seen it, it's the episode right below this one on your Dateline podcast feed. So make sure to go there, listen to it or stream it on Peacock and then come right back here. Now just to recap, when tech executive Bob Lee was fatally stabbed in 2023 on the streets of San Francisco, concerns grew over violence in the city. Investigators discovered that the crime was actually far more personal, involving the suspected killer's sister, allegations of sexual abuse, and a rather convoluted theory of the potential motive. Well, for

this Talking Dateline, we also have an extra clip about the star witness in the trial, Kazar Momeni, and what it was like for Bob Lee's brother to watch her take the stand and defend the man accused of killing him. All right, Josh, let's talk Dateline. How you doing? I am good, my friend. How are you doing? Good. Good. Great to see you. So my first question, actually, this one came to me as I was watching. A lot of time in the Dateline world, our stories don't necessarily make national news before we air them on Dateline,

right? Like our audience is hearing about them for the very first time when we bring them the story. This was clearly the opposite. This is a story that I remember when it first happened. I remember watching it. We covered it so heavily on NBC. How does that change your process, either the storytelling process or even just kind of how does that impact when you're trying to get people to do interviews with you? Well, it makes booking interviews a little more difficult because when you're the only people covering a story, it's much easier to deal with the people that you're trying to book for an interview because they don't have a hundred other requests.

But the thing that makes covering a national story on Dateline difficult is that it can sort of rob us of one of the things that we need for Dateline, which is sort of the suspense. So in this case, you have a certain base of knowledge out there among the public. The thing that really I thought helped us in this is that first of all, we covered the trial and we're airing pretty close after the trial ended, which is a couple of weeks ago.

And we have one more advantage, which is sort of what you thought, you the viewer, what you thought when this happened, turns out to be not really the story that was there. You know, a lot of people saw that video of Bob Lee stumbling around downtown San Francisco, and then sort of didn't really connect with anything after that,

because, you know, just the general flow of news. They remember, oh yeah, that guy got stabbed in San Francisco where the crime is so terrible. That's sort of what people thought. And then it turns out, of course, it really wasn't that at all. Well, let's talk about San Francisco. I mean, this really kind of provoked a very strong response about the city. It's fair to say this kind of shook the area and people far beyond it as well.

I think a lot of people jumped to the conclusion that this had to do with the crime problem on the streets of downtown San Francisco. And it didn't. And, you know, you talked about, of course, in the story that like, he still had his wallet, he still had his watch. So that was pretty quickly kind of disproven. The police certainly knew immediately that this wasn't a robbery, but they sort of, the police did an interesting thing, which is they kind of did not say anything to refute that part of the story saying, we don't really know what this is, but we're pretty sure what it's not. They didn't do

that because what they were fine with was the idea of that story, the robbery stories, just sort of sitting out there because they thought, well, whoever is responsible, and we don't know who that is at this point, they're going to think we're looking for, you know, downtown stick up men or something, and we aren't. And they'll let their guard down, right? Right. Yeah. That's what you want if you're doing an investigation. One thing that really stood out to me in this story, Josh, there was so much video.

I mean, obviously we had, yes, the video of him stumbling after he was stabbed, but the video of his final moments before that, I mean, the, you know, accused killer allegedly demonstrating his crime, like all of these different things. Yeah. I mean, and then the police went out, they got all of this stuff. That's one of the first things that happens in an investigation. They were able to not just see where Bob was walking around before he collapsed and before the police and paramedics found him after his 911 call, but they sort of went back in time on the

video and they saw that white car and then they follow that white car and it leads back to the Millennium Tower and the video gets progressively better of the car, like as they sort of go back in time, like the first video at the crime scene's not so good, but then they see it a couple of blocks away heading toward the crime scene, you know, sort of going back in time. They're like, okay, that's a little better.

They go back a little farther. They go to the Millennium Tower, and that's pay dirt. And you have this kind of Rashomon thing where they're walking out of the Millennium Tower, he and Nima. So the question is, what do you see when you see that video? Is that one guy who knows he's about to commit a murder and the other guy who thinks the danger, whatever it was, has passed, we're

fine, we're going to go hang out, we're good. Or is that Nima who is no longer angry at Bob and Bob who is carrying a knife and planning on attacking Nima. Tanya Larkin It's like exactly like you said, like you look at one of those pictures, it's like, do you see a woman with a shawl or do you see a dog with a smile? Right? Like what are you seeing? Let's talk about Bob Lee. I love the way that you unfolded it. I mean, first, of course, you talk about who he was to his family and then it's like, ah, yes, here's who he was, you know, in the bigger sense.

For a lot of us, it's like, oh my God, that's the guy who founded Cash App. That's immediately what a lot of people go to because he's somebody whose influence was certainly felt by all of us in some way. Cash App, Square, mobile coin. You know, in a way, this was robbery because we got robbed of all the stuff that Bob Lee would have created down the line. Right? because we got robbed of all the stuff that Bob Lee would have created down the line. So many of the things that Bob Lee was involved in and would have done would have continued

to change people's lives and make life easier for everybody and better for a lot of small businesses and people like that. So he was an interesting guy in that when police began their investigation, they couldn't find anybody that didn't like Bob Lee. Everybody talked about him as being a wonderful guy, a great friend, a really supportive coworker, a guy who had made a lot of money, but who had turned down probably bigger money

because he wanted to help people. And the interesting thing was, I didn't know his name. You may not have known his name before this happened, but you knew his work and inside the tech world, he was very well known. So this kind of hit like a bomb because this was a guy that was very well known, very well liked and very well regarded. I have to say I have a new favorite term from this episode, code play hard. I mean, it was

one of those things where I heard it. I was like, Oh, that I have a surprisingly clear picture of exactly the type of lifestyle you're talking about right now. When he said that, I mean, look, I mean, look, a lot of these guys are just like, you know, world's biggest nerds who have, you know, conquered the world through tech. And what do they do on their time off? Sometimes as one guy said, it's playing we tennis all night long until dawn. That was so funny. It's doing something at a different level. You know, sometimes it's drinking all night

long and sometimes it involves the drug world. You know, one interesting thing, there was a lot of talk about sex at the beginning of this case, that that was going to be part of this sort of Silicon Valley party underworld that was going to be unearthed. In the end, this was drugs. Drugs ended up being sort of the through line that connected all these people. And it turned out to be, you know, way less sex than I think people were initially expecting to hear about. I'm curious, as you were going through your interviews and talking about people who knew Bob and also who were in that culture, did

you find that anybody was hesitant to kind of dive into that? Dr. Craig Love Bob's friends were pretty open about it. Krista, his ex-wife, who remained extremely close to him, was open about it. And nobody was really worried about it, except Bob's brother, Oliver, who was open about it. And nobody was really worried about it except Bob's brother, Oliver, who was concerned about the extent to which he thought Bob was self-medicating because there had been some depression in their family and he thought Bob was dealing with that. You know, I think that, you know, we got a beautiful picture though of the duality of Bob's life, right? Because we heard from Christa Lee, like you said, and then we heard from

their two kids, right? How he was just this truly loving dad, like some real concrete examples of how he taught them things, doting on his kids. Christa was not worried about his drug use. She never saw that as impairing him personally, him professionally, or his relationship with the kids. And, you know, the kids clearly did not feel like they had sort of lost part of him because of that. They were both very attached to him and saw him as a really involved, caring, thoughtful, present parent. Yeah. You know, you get a real sense of loss, I think, from the kids. They had it a lot.

When we get back, Bob Lee's brother thought Nima Momeni's testimony was outrageous. But what did he make of the accused killer's sister on the stand? We've got an extra clip from Josh's interview with Oliver Lee coming up. I want to talk about Kazar Momeni. I think it's very fair to say that Kazar Momini was one of those unforgettable characters. She was so interesting. She became a key part, but it was very clear that she wanted nothing to do with this trial. What did you learn about her through the course of this? Her conduct played a huge role in setting in motion whatever happened next, whatever you believe. But she said something

or did something. She suggested a scenario in which something happened that made Nima angry. This is the prosecution's point of view and made him angry that Bob had put Kazar in that situation. Now we do know that whatever happened to Kazar, whatever it was, and that's very murky at this point, we know that Bob wasn't present. We know that Bob had already left at that point. But did Kazar in some subsequent conversation with her brother blame Bob for what had happened to her? Or did Nima just kind of take that from her, that inference, like, oh, Bob must have had something to do with this. You know, that inference, like, oh, Bob must have had something to do with this.

That we're sort of never gonna know. The sense that you got from this trial was that she would have said or done just about anything to keep her brother out of prison. I mean, she's on the stand and she says, my brother is not the person that killed Bob Lee. She said that. Well, her brother is not the person that killed Bob Lee. She said that. Well, her brother admits being the person that killed Bob Lee. I mean, that was sort

of the problem with her on the stand is he had said, I did do it, but it was self-defense. That was their defense. He tried to kill me and I ended up stabbing him with his own knife. I mean, you illustrate it right there. Like, Nima's defense attorney, who by the way is being paid for by Kazaa, right? Says, don't believe what she has to say. Don't believe anything. Which is something you don't hear every day. In the end, the question of what happened that night between Kazaa and Bob and Jeremy Boyven is is murky. Jeremy Boyven very explicitly says there was no sexual assault. And and because our later apologized to me, we don't know exactly what happened. And we don't know exactly what because our said about what happened. We do know that

Bob was not present at the time, which makes that motive, as you said before, really convoluted because it requires that Neema be furious at Bob for something that Bob was not present for. That's the problem with the prosecution motive. While we're on the subject of Kazar, a lot of people had thoughts about her clearly, including Bob Lee's family. So we have an extra clip of Bob Lee's brother, Oliver Lee, talking about his impressions of Kazar Momini. Kazar testified she was heartbroken about Bob's death. You believe that? That's when I started talking to the media.

You know, whenever we were gonna try, we were trying to stay out of the spotlight. But that was too much. It was too much. I felt that she was trying to get on the stand and claim this position as some widow or trying to take this whole, oh, I knew Bob so well, I'm heartbroken by this. And I felt she was trying to take that. And the reason I started Tarkin the Media is because I was not going to let her take that from our's the reason I started Tarkin Media is because I was not going

to let her take that from our family. Right. Because no, no, we're heartbroken. You helped cause this to happen. You made this happen, right? It is like she, very few things have angered me more. And it was so hard to be able to see that. So to her trying like, your brother already killed my brother, right?

Now you're trying to take our grief away is to repair your self-image and to repair your image in society in San Francisco? Absolutely not. We're not doing this. Yeah, without taking anything away from Oliver, because I completely understand him in this, there was some relationship between Kazar and Bob. I

mean, it appears to have not been, you know, primarily romantic or sexual. It appears to have been social and it certainly also connected over drugs. But were they close? They were because she sent these texts that night after Bob died, but she didn't know that Bob was dead, sort of thanking him for handling Nima's anger in such a classy way, which was a big part of the prosecution's motive, was these texts in which Khazar essentially acknowledged Nima was furious at Bob and Bob calmed Nima down. So I do completely understand where Oliver is coming from, but the relationship clearly did exist. You know, when you look at kind of the Momini family as a unit, and I'm so glad that we

heard from the mother in all of this too, what Christa said at the end, just kind of angry at the family in its entirety. I will never forgive this family for what they did to Bob. I thought that that was really interesting, But I also, it made me wonder, was there ever any talk of anyone else being, you know, facing charges and all this as an accomplice or anything? I mean, no one else has faced charges. I think what Krista is referring to is not just the issue of whether or not evidence was disposed of, But the question of Bob and Kazar's relationship and what Kazar said to Nima about what happened that night, which in the eyes of the prosecution and also the Lee family made Nima so angry that he took a knife from Kazar's apartment

and then stabbed Bob with it. And so that's why they say that family. I want to ask you about the defense attorney because one, I love the back and forth between the two of you guys. Obviously, you held your own. It was interesting. As soon as you introduced him and said he came from Miami to help with this case, I said, aha, Miami. Like that, you know, it just kind of, he seems like an attorney who came from Miami. He was wearing, when we first met, well, actually both times when we met, he was wearing a very expensive suit and some very expensive loafers with a big logo on them. This was a guy, I mean look,

Sam Zangade is a guy that if you are in serious trouble and you have some serious coin, he's the guy you want. So make no mistake about this. They came, I thought, that close to getting a mistrial in this case. They did a very good job. Look, it's fun sparring with guys like that. You'll be doing plenty of that in the months and years ahead.

But it was, you know, for our listeners who watched the episode and who are listening to us right now, one, it was a masterclass in how to do those types of interviews, right? Because I think for people who kind of see the end product of Dateline, when we're prepping for these, there's a lot of, you know the story in and out. So you anticipate what your interviewee is going to say. You kind of anticipate the arguments they're going to have. And so it really is just an interesting way of going into a conversation and thinking about all the different angles they're going to throw at you. You got to know the facts of the story before you go in because people, not everybody, but

people are going to try to sell you a different version of it. And that's sort of part of the job here. Absolutely. There are a lot of just kind of like still, you know, that's sort of part of the job here. Absolutely. There are a lot of just kind of like still, I guess, hanging chads in this story, right? You know, the sentencing phase. I do want to ask you though about the deliberation. Five days. Yeah. I mean, it was long and many people thought it went past the amount of time that the judge had told the jurors, this is how long the trial will take, including your deliberations. So many people, this reporter included, many

people thought this is going to be a mistrial, which would have been, I think, a pretty big victory for the defense. I think that would have been exactly what Sam Zangene wanted. Because look, the defense, I think that would have been, that would have been exactly what some saying and a wanted because look, I mean, in a mistrial, like you've already seen the other guy's hand, you know, you know what cards they have, you know how they're going to, and I don't know that there were that many more ways to present the evidence that the prosecution had presented. I mean, they, they put it out there. Um, and the motive was always kind of convoluted. Like it, it, it, it, that's one of the harder things to understand.

The forensics, they're a little more clear. The video, that's a little bit more clear. Like you sort of know Nima was the last person to see Bob before he was stabbed. But then at the last minute, they came out with a verdict. Not guilty of first degree murder, but guilty of second degree, which is gonna be of second-degree, which is going to be when he's sentenced at a 16-year minimum.

I think the prosecution was happy with a 16-year minimum. I think the family sees a measure of justice in this. I mean, here's one interesting thing. At the beginning of this case, people saw this as, you know, crime is the great equalizer, because even the rich can't protect themselves in the streets of San Francisco. And of course, that wasn't what this was about. This wasn't about how much crime there was or wasn't in San Francisco. But in the end, the Lee family are like a lot of other families we cover, which is they got the verdict that they wanted, or at least one close enough to it. But they've discovered that the criminal justice system is not a time machine. And

whatever happens to Nima Momeni now, this trial, that verdict doesn't bring back Bob Lee. And you got to, your life is split in half. And in that way, the Lee family is like all the other people that we cover on Dayline, which is there's the part before and then now there's the part after. Yeah. Yeah. And there's nothing to change that. Josh, we are going to talk about questions from social media. A lot of people had thoughts about this episode. So we've got that coming up. I bet they did. Okay, we're back. And Josh, we have a couple of audio questions this week. First up, let's hear from Amy Brownstein Berry on Facebook. Here's what she had to say.

Hello, Dateline. I wanted to ask what the friend thought that Bob was using as an implement for cocaine. the defense claims it was a knife, but I was wondering if the friend actually commented on what that was. The answer is, we don't know for sure, but there was discussion from many people that what Bob used to do cocaine was a collar stick, one of those little plastic things that fits inside your shirt collar to keep it stiff if you're wearing it with a tie. And that that would have been about the right size to be the object shown in the video. By the way, I believe that no collar stay was recovered from Bob, which doesn't mean anything because he could have

thrown it away. Men tend to have a lot of those. I mean, I probably have hundreds of them. Nicole Sarris Interesting. Do people keep them, I mean, obviously they're in your shirt, but do you keep them just in your pockets? Are they usually found loose in your pocket somewhere? Dr. Craig Love No, I mean, I've never seen anybody carrying them around. But sometimes when you send your shirts out, sometimes they come back with those stays in them. Usually when you buy the shirt, they have them and you're supposed to take them out before you send them to the laundry. Otherwise they'll get pressed into the shirt,

which is not good. So you want to take them out before the laundry. This is the vital premium content that Talking Dayline listeners expect by the way. I say we've learned a lot. We've learned a lot here. Okay. This is a fun question. Jabour Estefan on Facebook asked, has anyone ever said to Josh, bro, the defense attorney called you bro? Have you ever been called bro in an interview before? I noted that one too. I mean, there's a guy on Turner Classic Movies who does it all the time and it's really irritating. But I can't think of anybody else. He has a right though. But I can't think of anybody else. Well, I mean, you know, I mean, maybe technically.

But no, I don't, but you know, that's who Sam Zangina is. Like, I certainly took no offense at any of that. That's how he talks normally to everybody. But you know, hey, I've been called better, I've been called worse. Okay, we've got another audio question. This one is from Amanda Leckman-Dapolis on Facebook. Let's take a listen. Hi, Josh. Why did the judge not allow the video that police took of Nima talking to the private investigator and pantomiming the stabbing? Why did he not allow the jurors

to see what his mouth was doing in that video? Why did they cancel that out? Thank you in advance. The video, what's called the pantomime video, which is NEMA, depending on who you ask, either pantomiming or not pantomiming, stabbing Bob Lee in a conversation with his then attorney's private investigator in a parking lot. The defense argued that that was attorney work product. Talking to an investigator is like talking to your attorney. You obviously would not be able to take a video of a person talking to their attorney inside the attorney's office. That's clearly attorney-client privilege. The issue was that it happened in public,

that it happened in a parking lot where anyone could have seen it. The video was blurred because the judge, I think, was sort of splitting the baby here and saying, okay, you can see what he's doing, but I'm not going to let you hear what he said because anybody walking by might not have heard what he said. So that's why the court blurred Neema's mouth so you can't try to make out the conversation, but you can see what he's doing. And what the prosecution says he's doing is pantomiming, stabbing Bob Lee twice, and then throwing the knife away. Tanyer- Well, lots of audio questions. I love the audio questions, by the way. This is a

lot of fun to hear actually from people's voices. Josh- I want to encourage everybody to submit audio questions. Here's something that was funny, Josh, that people noticed, and I have to admit that I noticed this one too. Fans noticed just how tall Sergeant Dittmer is. When you guys were kind of walking side by side, I think down the street, Sylvia NYC wrote on X, I don't think I've ever seen anyone tower over Josh Mankiewicz on Dateline. So what was the deal there? How tall was this gentleman? Well, first of all, Keith does tower over me. I mean, Keith is over six feet. I'm five

nine and Keith is over six feet tall, but Sergeant Dittmer, I think is six five. And a lot of people on social the other night were saying things like, wow, is Josh like five three? I'm like, and he's normal sized? I'm like, no, he's very tall. Josh, this was a fascinating episode and it's always good to talk Dateline with you, my friend. Thank you. So great to see you. That's it for Talking Dateline for this week.

Remember, if you have any questions for us about stories or about Dateline, you can always reach us 24 seven on social media at Dateline NBC. And if you'd like to hear your voice on an upcoming episode of Talking Dateline, please send your questions as an audio file. We cannot wait to hear from you. And Keith's got a brand new podcast, Murder in the Moonlight. When a couple is found shot to death in their quiet farmhouse on America's Great Plains, the investigation includes four suspects, spans three states, and comes down to a single shiny clue, a gold ring found at the scene of the crime.

Follow Murder in the Moonlight now and get two new episodes a week starting February 17th completely free. Or subscribe to Dateline Premium to start listening now. Premium subscribers get early access and ad-free listening. And as always, we will see you on Fridays on Dateline on NBC. Thanks for listening.