Police have made an arrest in the murder of Bob Lee, 43, the tech executive and co-founder of Cash App who was found stabbed to death in downtown San Francisco last week.
Mission Local reports that police were recently dispatched to Emeryville, another Bay Area city, to arrest Nima Momeni, who is described as being “a man Lee purportedly knew,” and the owner of Expand IT, a tech firm based in San Francisco.
According to the outlet, police have said that Lee’s murder was “neither a robbery attempt nor a random attack.” Instead, it is alleged to have been the result of a fight between the two men as they were riding together in Momeni’s car in the early hours of April 4.
Police told Mission Local that Momeni and Lee were driving together through downtown San Francisco on the night of Lee’s murder and that they were traveling in a car registered to Momeni. At some point, a fight is said to have broken out inside the car, which “potentially continued after Lee exited the car.”
This allegedly culminated in Momeni stabbing Lee multiple times. A knife was recovered near the crime scene.
During a press conference Thursday, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said that Momeni had been charged with murder. The charge carries with it an “enhancement”—a legal flourish that could impact sentencing in the case—due to the murder having been committed with a knife, said Jenkins. Momeni is scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow for the charges, the DA shared.
Prior to his death, Lee was a well-known tech executive who, in addition to founding Cash App, worked for a number of large tech companies, including Jack Dorsey’s payment platform Block, nee Square.
Lee’s death set off a wave of chatter online and in the media about San Francisco’s “crime problem.” But a personal relationship between Lee and Momeni may undermine that narrative.
Gizmodo reached out to the San Francisco Police Department for confirmation of Mission Local’s details and will update this story if they respond.
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