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Suspect in fatal stabbing of Cash App founder pleads not guilty
Court Issues |
2023/05/18 23:28
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Tech consultant Nima Momeni pleaded not guilty Thursday to a murder charge in the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee on the streets of San Francisco.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Victor Hwang ordered Momeni, 38, kept in jail without bail, saying he posed a public safety risk if released. Momeni, who appeared in an orange sweatshirt and pants, did not speak, and his attorney Paula Canny entered the plea on his behalf.
The case has drawn national attention, partly given Lee’s status in the tech world. Lee was found with three stab wounds, including one to the heart, shortly after 2:30 a.m. April 4 and was taken to a hospital where he later died. He was found in the Rincon Hill neighborhood in downtown San Francisco, which has tech offices and condominiums but little activity in the early morning hours.
Lee, 43, created Cash App, a mobile payment service, and was the chief product officer of the cryptocurrency MobileCoin. He was mourned as a loving father of two who made friends wherever he went.
Prosecutors have not provided a motive but say Momeni stabbed Lee after a dispute related to Momeni’s sister, who appeared in court Thursday alongside their mother.
Assistant District Attorney Omid Talai argued Thursday to detain Momeni without bail, saying that the defendant drove Lee to a secluded spot and used a knife that was part of a unique kitchen set belonging to his sister. Police recovered a knife with a 4-inch (10-centimeter) blade at the scene.
Talai said that analysis showed Momeni’s DNA on the handle of the knife and Lee’s DNA on the bloody blade and no evidence that Lee had touched the handle, contradicting Canny’s claim of self-defense for her client.
But Canny said that Momeni did not drive Lee to a secluded spot with the aim of killing him. Instead, she said, Lee directed him to pull over after calling an Uber because the two had argued. The last time Momeni saw Lee, Canny said, Lee was standing upright and walking away.
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Delaware Senate confirms two Supreme Court nominees
Court Issues |
2023/05/05 00:20
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The state Senate has confirmed Gov. John Carney’s two nominees for the Delaware Supreme Court, including a lawyer tapped by Carney for the high court after he was arrested for drunken driving.
Carney’s nominations of Abigail LeGrow and N. Christopher Griffiths were confirmed Wednesday with no support from Senate Republicans. Despite Griffiths’ DUI arrest in January, GOP lawmakers were primarily outraged that, for the first time in decades, there will be no resident of Kent County on the state’s highest court.
“The governor of this great state threw us under the bus,” said Sen. Eric Buckson, a Kent County Republican.
Senate Minority Whip Brian Pettyjohn of Georgetown described Carney’s decision to forego nominating a justice from central Delaware as “insulting.”
Last week, members of the Democrat-controlled House unanimously passed a bipartisan bill mandating that the five-member Supreme Court include at least one justice from central Kent County, one from southern Sussex County, and two from northern New Castle County. The state Senate declined to take up the bill before voting on Carney’s nominees. Two Dover-area Democratic senators who cosponsored the bill, Trey Paradee and Kyra Hoffner, voted Wednesday to confirm Carney’s picks.
“Judge LeGrow and Chris have the experience, knowledge, and commitment to public service necessary to serve on the Supreme Court,” Carney said in a statement issued after they were confirmed.
Before the Senate vote, Pettyjohn questioned Griffiths during a Senate Executive Committee hearing about the traffic stop that led to his arrest, but Griffiths offered few details.
“The bottom line is this, I had too much to drink, and I should not have drove,” said Griffiths, who said he complied with the trooper who stopped him.
Griffiths, who will be the first black man to serve on the Supreme Court, also indicated that he feared that the trooper, whom he nevertheless described as “a complete gentleman,” might physically abuse him because of his race.
“I’m a black man driving around in lower Delaware at a mostly white beach, and I want to go home to my family,” Griffiths said. “There’s a lot of things in the national news that are burned in our minds and our hearts, and I wanted that officer to know “we’re on the same team.’”
“I have images in my brain from the biases I bring to that situation of, man, I want to make sure I go home tonight. I want to make sure there’s not a knee in my back but that I go home alive,” Griffiths added.
Griffiths pleaded guilty in March to reckless driving that was alcohol-related, an offense he compared to “a simple traffic ticket.” He was fined and ordered to complete an education course for those charged with driving under the influence.
LeGrow and Griffiths replace Tamika R. Montgomery-Reeves, who now sits on a federal appeals court, and Justice James T. Vaughn Jr., a Kent County resident who retired effective this week.
LeGrow has served as Superior Court judge since February 2016. She previously served as a Master in Chancery on the Delaware Court of Chancery. LeGrow received her law degree from the Pennsylvania State University. Griffiths has been a partner at the Wilmington law firm of Connolly Gallagher, which also employs Democratic state Sen. Kyle Evans Gay. He previously was a wealth manager for Wilmington Trust Company and the Vanguard Group. Griffiths, who received his law degree from Villanova University, is the son of Norman Griffiths, a retired DuPont attorney who served 20 years on the Wilmington City Council. |
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Court denies request to lift gag order in Idaho killings
Court Issues |
2023/04/22 07:54
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The Idaho Supreme Court on Monday rejected a request by 30 news organizations to lift a gag order in the criminal case of a man accused of stabbing four University of Idaho students to death.
The high court did not weigh in on whether the gag order, which prohibits attorneys, prosecutors, law enforcement agencies and others involved in the case from talking to the news media, violates the First Amendment rights of a free press. Instead, the unanimous Idaho Supreme Court justices said the news organizations should have brought their request to the magistrate judge who issued the gag order.
“This Court has long respected the media’s role in our constitutional republic, and honored the promises in both the Idaho Constitution and First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” Justice Gregory Moeller wrote in the decision, going on to quote a ruling from a federal case that said responsible press coverage, “guards against the miscarriage of justice” by subjecting the court system and those who are a part of it to public scrutiny.
Still, Moeller wrote, the balancing act between the First Amendment protections afforded to the press and the Sixth Amendment fair trial rights promised to defendants has become increasingly difficult with the advent of the internet and social media.
Though those are “well-guarded rights,” Moeller said, news organizations who wish to challenge gag orders should start at the lower courts and work their way up to the state’s highest judicial bench, rather than approaching the Supreme Court first.
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Court rules documents in Sanford case must be unsealed
Court Issues |
2023/04/08 01:21
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The South Dakota Supreme Court ruled Thursday that affidavits from an investigation into child pornography allegations against billionaire philanthropist T. Denny Sanford must be unsealed.
In 2019, South Dakota investigators searched his email account, as well as his cellular and internet service providers, for evidence of possession of child pornography, after his accounts were flagged by a technology firm.
Sanford, the state’s richest man, was not charged after the South Dakota attorney general’s office said its investigation into the allegations found no prosecutable offenses within the state’s jurisdiction.
Sanford had sought to bar affidavits used to issue search warrants in the case. But the Sioux Falls Argus Leader and ProPublica argued in court that the documents should be made public.
After the decision not to file charges, Judge James Power ordered in June 2022 that South Dakota law required the affidavits to be unsealed. They were kept sealed while Sanford’s attorneys appealed, sending the case to the state Supreme Court. |
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