Topline
Police in San Francisco arrested a tech executive suspected of fatally stabbing Cash App founder and cryptocurrency firm executive Bob Lee earlier this month, Mission Local reported Thursday—here’s what we know about the alleged assailant.
The San Francisco Police Department has reportedly arrested a tech employee in connection with … [+]
Key Facts
Police on Thursday arrested Nima Momeni, Mission Local first reported, just over a week after Lee, a 43-year-old chief product officer at cryptocurrency startup MobileCoin, was stabbed to death near the Bay Bridge in downtown San Francisco, where he had reportedly been visiting.
Momeni, 38, was arrested and booked on suspicion of murder shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday morning, according to the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office.
Momeni is the owner of information technology consulting company Expand IT, which he joined in April 2010, after working as a consultant and systems engineer with multiple San Francisco-based companies, including Marfic and Coast Range Technologies, according to his LinkedIn page.
According to his LinkedIn account, Momeni is based in the Bay Area city of Emeryville, California, just north of Oakland, which matches the address provided to the Local by police.
One neighbor in Emeryville described Momeni as “warm and welcoming” when he met him, telling the San Francisco Chronicle he had a pool table and tech equipment in an apartment unit on Harlan Street.
Lee and Momeni, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, had known each other and had driven together through downtown San Francisco just hours before Lee was killed, after the two reportedly got into an argument, police told Mission Local.
Police also told Mission Local they believe the murder was “neither a robbery attempt nor a random attack” (Forbes has reached out to the San Francisco Police Department for confirmation).
Key Background
Lee founded mobile payment company Cash App in 2013 while he was working at former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s online payment platform Block (which was then known as Square). In 2021, he came on board at MobileCoin, a crypto firm founded in 2017. Last Tuesday, emergency response officials responded to reports of the stabbing shortly after 2:30 a.m., and took Lee to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead from his stab wounds, NBC Bay Area first reported. Local police later reported they had recovered the knife they claim Momeni used to stab Lee multiple times near where police first responded to the crime.
Tangent
Since his death, public officials and tech executives have condemned the stabbing and celebrated Lee’s career, including MobileCoin founder Joshua Goldbard, who praised Lee’s “brain” and “infectious” energy at the company. San Francisco Mayor London Breed (D) called the event a “horrible tragedy” and pledged to prioritize public safety (San Francisco’s murder rate has slightly increased over the past five years, though its overall crime rate is down over that time, according to the city’s police department). Matt Dorsey, a member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, said in a tweet Thursday morning, “Nothing can undo this senseless crime,” adding that he hopes an arrest will “begin a process of closure for all those touched by this tragedy.”
Further Reading
Tech Executive Reportedly Arrested Over Fatal Stabbing Of Cash App Creator Bob Lee (Forbes)
Cash App Creator Bob Lee Dead After Stabbing In San Francisco (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/04/13/who-is-nima-momeni-suspect-arrested-in-killing-of-cash-app-founder-bob-lee/