At the center of millionaire Cash App founder Bob Lee’s explosive murder trial is the suspect’s sister — a glamorous plastic surgeon’s wife who was reportedly involved in San Francisco’s underground party scene, which often involves drugs and swinging sex.
Khazar Elyassnia, 38, has allegedly been partying and sleeping with Lee when her brother, Nima Momeni, 40, stabbed Lee to death in the early hours of April 4, 2023.
That night, 43-year-old Lee was found bleeding out and begging for help in the heart of San Francisco at 2:30 a.m. — just half an hour after he was spotted leaving Elyassnia’s posh Millennium Tower home alongside Momeni.
Momeni’s lawyers say he killed Lee in self defense, alleging the tech founder was high on drugs and tried to slash Momeni.
Lee and Elyassnia were involved in a wealthy San Francisco’s party scene known as “The Lifestyle,” which revolves around drug use and casual sex, the Wall Street Journal previously reported.
The couple had attended such a party together the night of the killing, and Momeni was under the impression that Lee had drugged and raped his sister, prosecutors argued during their opening statements Monday.
Momeni decided to exact revenge on behalf of his sister, prosecutors said — only for Khazar to call her brother “f–king psychotic” hours later in “damning” text messages.
Prosecutors said those messages are a key part of the evidence that will prove Momeni is guilty of first-degree murder.
Further ramping up the drama — Momeni’s lawyers tried to have Lee’s ex-wife Krista barred from the courtroom after she referred to Khazar as “the whore of high tower” — a reference to her apartment in a luxury high-rise, court documents show.
The siblings are reportedly close, friends have previously said, born less than a year apart and immigrating from Iran with their mother in the 1990s.
“[Nima] would do absolutely anything for [Khazar] and she would do anything for him,” one friend told Mission Local.
Since 2013, Khazar has been married to Dr. Dino Elyassnia, a prominent plastic surgeon who specializes in nose-jobs.
His name has been splashed across magazines for years, where he’s talked glowingly of his marriage and wife, according to the San Francisco Standard.
He has joined her in court throughout her brother’s trial proceedings.
But the image of a sunny marriage has grown cloudy since her name was connected to Lee and “The Lifestyle.”
One person told the Standard he matched with Khazar on a dating app in 2019 and even went home with her.
Last November, she was arrested for a DUI after smashing her Mercedes into several cars in broad daylight in San Francisco.
Cops alleged said they saw her huffing nitrous oxide while behind the wheel, and police discovered spent canisters of the intoxicating inhalant in her car.
The charges were later dropped pending further investigation.
It is unclear when her alleged relationship with Lee started, but she previously denied being sexually assaulted by anyone at the party — and even insisted to her brother that nothing untoward happened, according to court documents.
Momeni has pleaded not guilty to murder.
“Nima had to stand his ground against someone who had barely slept in a 90-hour span and was utilizing cocaine the whole time,” attorney Saam Zangeneh said in court, according to the Standard.
“People on these long-term cocaine benders they’re paranoid, aggressive, and violent.”
Lee was found with both ketamine and cocaine in his system when he died.