A fellow tech worker was arrested on Thursday in the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee, 43 on the streets of San Francisco, according to Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin and other city officials. The suspect was identified as Nima Momeni, 38, of Emeryville, who was arrested around 9.19 am on suspicious of Lee's murder.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Momeni had previously described himself as an information technology consultant and entrepreneur. Following the arrest, Lee's wife said this is just the "first step toward justice." Lee, a dad of two, was stabbed just after 2:30 am April 4 in the ritzy neighborhood of Rincon Hill.
Nabbed at Last
According to reports, Lee knew the killer. According to Mission Local's sources, the suspect and Lee were allegedly involved in some sort of altercation while driving through the city, which led to Lee existing the car.
He was visiting the city from Miami, where he lived. Police have not yet released the identity of the suspect, but according to Mission Local, he was a fellow Bay Area-based tech executive. The outlet identified the suspect as Nima Momeni, who has prior criminal records.
It is unclear if Momeni was in the city to attend the same tech conference Lee was in town for.
According to the outlet, which cited police sources, their altercation continued even after Lee exited the vehicle and he was then fatally stabbed by the suspect on the quiet street. The knife used to murder Lee was recovered from the scene, which was close to the hotel where Lee was staying.
The motive of the murder, however, remains unclear.
According to his LinkedIn page, Momeni is the owner of the information technology consulting firm Extend IT. He joined the company in April 2010 after serving as a consultant and systems engineer for a number of San Francisco-based businesses, including Marfic and Coast Range Technologies.
Momeni, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, is based in Emeryville, California, a city in the Bay Area that is close to Oakland, which is the same address that police gave the Local.
The murder, according to police, "was neither a robbery attempt nor a random attack," Mission Local reported.
Tip of the Iceberg
Dramatic surveillance footage, which hasn't been made public, shows the dying tech mogul approaching a car with its hazards flashing and lowering his shirt to the driver to show he was seriously injured.
According to other local outlets who had seen the video, the driver sped off without offering help, and Lee collapsed to the ground in the footage.
It's unclear from the footage whether Lee was approaching the suspect's red car or a different passing vehicle.
Lee reportedly called 911 on his own and requested for help after being stabbed. He was already unconscious when the police arrive, and succumbed to his injuries from the stabbing at the hospital.
According to a friend of Lee, the tech tycoon recently went to Miami because he believed San Francisco was "deteriorating." Lee had most recently worked for cryptocurrency startup MobileCoin.
"He was in the 'good' part of the city and appeared to have been targeted in a random mugging/attack," his friend, mixed martial arts champion Jake Shields, tweeted shortly after the murder.
The victim's ex-wife, Krista Lee, told Fox News 2 that she is still perplexed by the suspect's motive, but the two knew each other.
Lee's death was cited as the most recent example of the city's rising crime rate, which led to increased criticism of Mayor London Breed.
She warned locals not to "jump to conclusions" about his death over the weekend, claiming that they "will be surprised when the facts come out."
A former fire commissioner was attacked in the street in front of his mother's home a day after Lee passed away. In that incident, a 24-year-old male was taken into custody.
The incident and Lee's passing, according to the fire commissioner, are evidence of the growing crime problem in San Francisco.
Rick, Lee's father, earlier paid him respect on social media and called him his "best buddy." They recently relocated as a family from San Francisco to Florida.
Krista moved to Florida to be closer to their kids even though she and Lee were no longer together.
