New details are emerging about the fatal stabbing of Cash App founder Bob Lee last week and the tech consultant who has been charged with murder in his killing.
Lee, 43, the chief product officer at cryptocurrency startup MobileCoin, was found bleeding near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge around 2:35 a.m. April 4. He was taken to a hospital, where he died. Nima Momeni, 38, a tech consultant and entrepreneur, was arrested and charged with murder Thursday.
According to a source familiar with the circumstances of the events leading up to the killing, Momeni, Lee and a group of friends had gone out the night of the killing. At some point, Momeni and Lee were in a car alone together, and Momeni became upset at Lee and blamed him for someone in the party having too much to drink, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Momeni and Lee were in the same friend group but didn’t know each other very well, the source said.
Authorities said Thursday that the case is still under investigation and did not disclose a motive.
Lee’s brother, Tim Lee, said after the arrest that the family was “thankful for the SFPD for bringing this person to justice so quickly.”
“Hopefully now our family can begin the healing process,” he wrote on Facebook. “I also want to thank the thousands of friends, family, and community that have reached out with support over the last week.”
Bob Lee was chief technology officer at the payments platform Square, which has since been renamed Block, when he founded the company’s mobile payment service Cash App in 2013. He lived in Mill Valley, Calif., after his mother died in 2019, then he moved to Miami in October, according to a Facebook post last week by his father, Rick Lee.
“Bobby worked harder than anyone and was the smartest person I have ever known,” Rick Lee wrote. “He will be missed by all those that knew him.”
At the time he was killed, Bob Lee was staying in San Francisco for a few days to spend time with friends after a MobileCoin leadership summit, said his friend Doug Dalton, who met Lee years ago when both were software engineers.
Lee and Momeni had friends in common but were not close, Dalton said. It appears that like most homicide victims in the U.S., Lee knew his attacker.
“Some people have been trying to frame this as rampant crime,” Dalton wrote in a text message to The Times, but “San Francisco is turning around.”
Momeni owned a business called Expand IT, which he operated from the Emeryville, Calif., live-work building where he was arrested Thursday morning.
The company, which was founded in 2010, provided tech services for clients in healthcare, finance and other businesses, according to Momeni’s LinkedIn account.
Sam Singer, who works in an office next to Momeni’s and serves on the building’s board, said they met when Singer was moving into his space a month ago.
He called Momeni a “kind, professional gentleman” but noted an odd incident the night before Lee’s death, April 3, when a woman entered the building and screamed the name “Nima,” according to Singer as well as posts in the building’s private Facebook group.
Singer said the episode was so unnerving to residents that a complaint was filed about it.
Singer said that Momeni worked and lived in his unit and had been there as far back as 2021. When Singer first moved into his own unit, Momeni left a note for him, welcoming him to the building.
“He was very welcoming, kind and charming,” Singer said. “You’d never have any idea that he would be accused of such a heinous crime.”
Russell Haynes, owner of Coast Range Technologies in the the San Francisco Bay Area, said Momeni was an IT consultant at his company in 2006. Momeni was a quiet, respectful worker who often went out in the field to troubleshoot problems at businesses, Haynes said.
“He was a young man, eager to learn IT. He wanted to run his own business,” Haynes said.
He was shocked to hear that Momeni was arrested on suspicion of murder.
“That’s not the Nima of my day,” Haynes said.
Momeni was charged in 2011 in Alameda County with driving with a suspended license and selling a switchblade knife. He pleaded no contest to the moving violation, the knife charge was dismissed, and he was sentenced to 10 days in county jail and three years of probation. He was also charged in 2004 with driving under the influence of alcohol, a misdemeanor. The charge was dismissed.
Neighbor Chris Donatiello said Momeni seemed friendly and welcoming, adding that nothing appeared amiss when he saw Momeni after Lee’s death.
“I saw him last week. Just outside in the parking lot,” Donatiello said. “I said, ‘Hey haven’t seen you in a while. How are you?’ and he said, ‘Better now that I’m seeing you.’”
Times staff writers Noah Goldberg and Salvador Hernandez contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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