A week ago, Bob Lee, head of product at crypto payment service Mobile Coin, was murdered in San Francisco. Now the police have announced an arrest: the alleged killer is another tech entrepreneur who knew Lee personally. Nima Momeni was taken into custody in the town of Emeryville, near San Francisco, and charged with Bob Lee’s murder, according to District Attorney Brooke Jenkins.
In a LinkedIn profile of Momeni, he is listed as an IT consultant and entrepreneur. San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said at a news conference that the two men knew each other. However, he declined to give details of the alleged motive for the fatal attack or what led to Momeni’s identification as a suspect. Jenkins said Momeni was taken into custody without bail and is scheduled to appear in court on Friday.
While Lee’s killing initially sparked comments about San Francisco’s descent into lawlessness – including a tweet from Elon Musk that “violent crimes in San Francisco are appalling” – city officials on Thursday warned against jumping to conclusions.
District Attorney Jenkins highlighted Musk’s criticism, saying, “Refuse and irresponsible statements, such as those in Mr. Musk’s tweet, which assume false circumstances surrounding Mr. Lee’s death, mislead the world’s perception of San Francisco and have repercussions also negatively impact the pursuit of justice for crime victims as they spread misinformation”.
“This (case) has nothing to do with San Francisco,” Scott said. He “had something to do with human nature.” Mayor London Breed commended San Francisco police and prosecutors for not acting on rumors and focusing on the facts of the case. “What the people of San Francisco have been asking for is accountability,” she said.
Mission Localan online news site in the city, reported that the attack followed an argument between Lee and Momeni while they were in Momeni’s vehicle. The knife used in the attack was also found not far from where officers initially responded to the incident. Mission Local did not indicate the source of this information. So they could not be independently confirmed.
Bob Lee was the first chief technology officer of Square, the startup co-founded by Jack Dorsey, now called Block Inc. While working for the company, he developed CashApp, a money transfer program that allows users to buy stocks and bitcoin. Earlier in his career, he worked as a software engineer at Google developing Android.
Nima Momeni is the owner of a small IT company called Expand IT Inc. On Thursday, when news of his arrest broke, the company’s LinkedIn page suddenly went down and the company’s website went down. Previously it was said on LinkedIn that the company had fewer than ten employees. His company’s website previously listed customer testimonials and a phone number to request services. Calls to the number provided for Momeni’s IT company went to automated lines that routed callers to voicemail.