Global Courant 2023-04-14 01:33:09
A self-proclaimed tech consultant was arrested Thursday in the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee last week in San Francisco, police said.
Nima Momeni, 38, has been arrested on suspicion of murder, San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said at a news conference. San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said Momeni will be charged with murder in Lee’s death and is expected to be charged Friday.
Scott declined to provide details about how they linked the death to Momeni or how the men knew each other. The chief also declined to disclose a possible motive for the murder.
Aaron Peskin, chairman of the San Francisco board of directors, announced the arrest of the suspect in Emeryville, a San Francisco suburb.
Police found Lee with stab wounds in the Rincon Hill neighborhood of San Francisco at 2:30 a.m. local time on April 4. He died in a hospital.
Flowers are on a tree in front of the building where Lee was fatally stabbed. (Jeff Chiu/The Associated Press)
Lee is known for creating the widely used mobile payment service Cash App while working as chief technology officer of the payments company Square, now known as Block. He was the chief product officer of the cryptocurrency company MobileCoin at the time of his death.
On his LinkedIn profile, Momeni describes himself as an “IT consultant/entrepreneur” and also an “owner” at a company called Expand IT.
It was not immediately clear whether Momeni has a lawyer who can speak on his behalf.
“I hope today’s arrest can begin a process of healing and closure for everyone touched by this tragedy,” Matt Dorsey, another San Francisco supervisor, tweeted Thursday morning.
The Cash App logo can be seen in the main lobby during the Bitcoin Conference 2022 in Miami Beach. (Marco Bello/Reuters)
Prominent tech leaders took to social media to mourn Lee’s death and blame San Francisco for what they call the city’s lax attitude to crime. Scott and Jenkins countered that story on Thursday, with the prosecution specifically citing tech billionaire Elon Musk for comment on the case.
“This has nothing to do with San Francisco, this has to do with human nature,” Scott said.
San Francisco’s Mission Local news outlet first reported Momeni’s arrest.
