The lead police investigator in the case against Nima Momeni, likely the last witness prosecutors will call in the ongoing murder trial of Cash App founder Bob Lee, revealed today that Momeni’s brother-in-law investigated how to erase iPhones in the days after the murder. .

Sergeant. Brent Dittmer, who was questioned for less than two hours by prosecutors, served primarily to gather testimony over the past 10 days from other witnesses he interviewed or police officers he supervised during the investigation of the case.

However, his testimony did not answer remaining questions about motive or premeditation for the killing, which prosecutors will need to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt to convict Momeni of murder.

When Momeni’s home was searched during his arrest nine days after the stabbing in April 2023, several phones were found.

Dittmer said today that all of those phones had been activated shortly before Momeni’s arrest. Both Momeni and her sister Khazar had given their phones to Momeni’s lawyer at the time, Paula Canny. They both received new phones. It is unclear whether the new phones were among those found in the search.

Finally, the police obtained Canny’s phones. Dittmer did not indicate that any data had been deleted, but called it “unusual and suspicious” that Momeni had handed over his phone.

Around the same time, Khazar’s husband, plastic surgeon Dino Elyassnia, investigated deleting data from iPhones, Dittmer testified.

dittmer: So that’s the web history report of the extraction… it says title, ‘how to erase iPhone’ in Google search… And then a category that says ‘deleted: yes’.

talai: …What do we see here?

dittmer: “This is a report of searched items from the iPhone… under ‘deleted’, it says ‘yes’ and there is nothing in the account. The second item… again the value is “how to erase iPhone.”

It’s unclear if any data beyond these searches was removed from Elyassnia’s phone; Dittmer said nothing and was not asked about it. Previously, another witness testified that Momeni’s mother and sister tried to sell their BMW in the weeks after his arrest. Police had been searching for the vehicle and finally found it at a San Francisco BMW dealership.

Prosecutors today also tried to introduce text messages taken from Elyassnia’s phone, but the judge agreed with defense lawyers’ objection and did not allow the question.