SF tech worker charged in murder of Cash App founder

The San Francisco Police Department said Thursday that Nima Momeni has been arrested and charged with Cash App founder and MobileCoin Chief Product Officer Bob Lee’s murder.

SFPD Chief William Scott confirmed at a press conference Thursday afternoon that Momeni, 38, and Lee knew each other prior to the murder. Scott declined to discuss a motive for the crime.

San Francisco Board of Supervisors Member Matt Dorsey noted the arrest in a tweet on Thursday. “I’m grateful to [SFPD]’s Homicide Detail and all the officers from [SFPD Southern] and elsewhere for their tireless work to bring Bob Lee’s killer to justice and for their arrest of a suspect this morning,” Dorsey wrote.

News of the arrest, first reported by local outlet Mission Local, comes nine days after Lee’s early morning killing. Multiple outlets identified the suspect as Momeni, an IT consultant who is based in the San Francisco suburb of Emeryville, according to LinkedIn.

This was not a random attack, according to police, who portrayed Lee and Momeni as “being familiar with one another” according to Mission Local, and driving together prior to the knife attack. Police officials allege that Momeni stabbed Lee several times, and that the weapon was recovered not far from where they responded to the scene where Lee was.

In 2011, Momeni was charged with allegedly selling a switchblade knife and driving with a suspended license, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, which cited court records. The knife charge was dismissed in 2012, at which time he also pleaded no contest to the suspended license charge. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail, three years of probation, and he was fined more than $900. He was also ordered to destroy the knife, the Chronicle reported.

Momeni is scheduled to be arraigned Friday on murder charges and detained without bail, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said at the press conference.

Following Lee’s murder last week, MobileCoin CEO Joshua Goldbard wrote, “Bob was so much more than a technologist. Bob was an artist. Everywhere he went Bob breathed love into this world. He had so much deep heartfelt love.”

“One of the things that made him truly special was his capacity to dream big and to summon those big crazy dreams into our world,” Goldbard said. “Bob summoned the future into the present.”