Sam Zanganeh
Appearances
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
He is innocent. The DA here, right, had unbelievable pressure on this case. And you think charging Nima is a sort of reaction to that? I think that they jumped the gun, right? They found somebody, they went in, and they made an arrest. They say something happened and Bob Lee died.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
There's powers that are not normally in play when the decedent is the kind of person that Bob Lee is, right? I call, not a regular victim, we call it victim plus, right? When you have someone who's in that victim plus era... That's Bob Lee. That's Bob Lee. He's victim plus squared, right?
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
It's a little paranoid. Okay, but you can be killed with a blade that big. Of course you can, right? That's not the kind of blade you take to hurt somebody, right? If you're in a kitchen, there's a ton of knives there. You're gonna pick the smallest, weakest one?
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
There's this Nest Cam, which shows like these two blurry dots on Main Street. They've taken that video and they have sped it up, slowed it down, changed the lighting to make something that occurred look different than what actually occurred. Right? Smoke and mirrors, my man. Smoke and mirrors.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
What's happening in that video? Well, I'll tell you what's not happening in that video is that he's not pantomiming anything. They don't have any evidence of what's going on there. So what are they going to do? They're going to assume and speculate and try to force a square peg into a round hole.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
They have a power of attorney. They took the car to the dealership where they purchased it because he had legal bills coming. They could have junked it. They could have lit it on fire. They didn't do any of that stuff. They took it back to the dealership.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
Their story was that Nima killed Bob Lee because Bob Lee's friend touched his sister's ass. The defense argued Nima was not furious with Bob at all, and pointed to those security videos of Bob and Nima leaving the Millennium Tower.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
They didn't leave in a hurry, Josh. They went and hung out in the front of the valet. Didn't appear to have any issues.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
And in a very odd moment, even though Khazar Momeni and her husband helped bankroll Nima's defense,
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
No, no, no, I don't. And let me tell you why. Because she's an addict, okay? You can't ask the jury to believe something that doesn't really pass the smell test, right?
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
When we tell our story and we explain exactly how it transpired, it's eye-opening.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
When we tell our story and we explain exactly how it transpired, it's eye-opening.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
It's 2 a.m., his flight's in seven, eight hours, and he is still actively just partying like a rock star, which to me suggests he had no plans on sleeping. And consuming, consuming.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
I don't think he took the knife as a weapon. Bob's doing coke. He's been doing coke for multiple days. This is what you do. You take the knife, you use the bottom to break up the bag, and then...
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
He's been chomping at the bit, man, for so long to be able to tell his story.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
They start driving because they're going to go towards where the strip clubs are. That's when they had the little hiccup. Nima's like, hey, he spilled his beer all over him.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
That's when Bob noticed something in the back seat. He found some whippet canisters back there because Khazar had left it in his car. He did a few hits, took a few bumps, and then got out of the car. He thought he was going to puke. Nima went. They're outside. And then that's when the conversation went from normal to adversarial. Nima said he made a joke, a bad one, he admitted.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
Bob's on the left with the knife. He swung, right, which is what our animation shows, that it was a swinging motion.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
And it shows him walking backwards with what appears to be his hands up in the air, right? And then goes to the other side of the sidewalk, tracks in the northerly direction. It shows him bending down, picking up the knife, and then throwing it over the fence.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
prosecutor, to his credit, really quickly got under his skin. the same guy that had been calling him a coward and a dirtbag for 18 months. But here's what I'll tell you. His testimony didn't change. It also doesn't make any sense. What doesn't make sense?
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
That's not the most credible story. Well, I mean, listen, leaving the knife within a few feet of the scene, right, is maybe subjective of someone that is panicking. I don't think it's as cut as dry and you guys are making it out the scene at all. I don't, respectfully.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
Yeah, but then why would you leave the knife at the scene? Why wouldn't you call the police and say, someone tried to kill me and I had to defend myself? Well, when you're dealing with an immigrant like Nima, someone that, you know, is an average Joe, and then the person that you're claiming tried to kill you is Bob Lee, probably not something you want to get yourself into.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
From a strategic decision, we held off, we didn't talk about it, we entered it in evidence.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
That looks to me like a knife. And you're convinced that's the knife that eventually became the murder weapon? What else would it be? Because nothing else was recovered that looked like that on him. Nothing.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
There's powers that are not normally in play when the decedent is the kind of person that Bob Lee is. Not a regular victim. We call it victim plus.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
I thought that it was going to be a mistrial. You did? Yeah. I thought that if they didn't come to a decision on that day, they were going to hang. And I thought that that's what it was going to be.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
When the verdict came in, you absorb it. I wasn't happy with it. I think the jury, I mean, I don't think they got it right.