A San Francisco jury has found Nima Momeni guilty of second-degree murder in the stabbing of Bob Lee, the Cash App creator and former CTO of Block, according to NBC News Bay Area on Tuesday. The jury found Momeni not guilty of first-degree murder, meaning jurors decided the murder of Lee was not premeditated.
Lee was fatally stabbed on the streets of downtown San Francisco in April 2023. During the trial, prosecutors painted a dramatic picture of Lee’s two-day drug binge with Khazar Momeni, the sister of his murderer, which preceded his death. Prosecutors alleged that Lee’s friend and drug dealer had sexually assaulted Khazar during the escapade, leading to a heated exchange in which Nima ultimately stabbed Lee with a kitchen knife from his sister’s home.
However, the defense told a different story. Nima Momeni told the jury he was out on a walk with Lee under the Bay Bridge on the night of the stabbing, trying to convince Lee to spend more time at home with his family instead of out partying. The defense alleged that Lee became frustrated and attacked Momeni with a knife during that conversation, leading Momeni to retaliate in self defense and grab the weapon from Lee. Momeni told jurors he had no animosity towards Lee.
However, video evidence of the event indicated that Momeni was the aggressor, and forensic testing found Momeni’s DNA on the knife’s handle.
The punishment for first-degree murder is often harsher than the punishment for second-degree murder, but both typically come with lengthy prison sentences. Momeni is facing 16 years to life in prison, with sentencing to come at a later date.
Lee was 43 and the chief product officer at the cryptocurrency company MobileCoin at the time of his death. Prior to that, he led technology development at Jack Dorsey’s Block, where he created the mobile payment service, Cash App, and was also an investor in SpaceX, Clubhouse, Tile, and Figma. In his early 20s, he helped develop the Android operating system at Google.
At the time of his death, Lee’s colleagues and peers praised his contributions to the technology world. The CEO of Figma, Dylan Field, noted how Lee first met with him when he was 14 and was an early supporter of Figma. Dorsey said Lee was instrumental to creating Square, which then became Block.
Initially after Lee’s murder, many speculated that the tech executive’s death was random and related to San Francisco’s homelessness and crime problem. In fact, it turned out that Lee knew the killer.
