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The Independent
07-02-2025
- The Independent
Dramatic footage gives new glimpse into Cash App Bob Lee's murder
When Cash App founder Bob Lee was stabbed to death on a San Francisco street nearly two years ago, it was initially assumed to be a robbery gone wrong and reignited an already growing fury over increased violence in the city. But the assailant wanted nothing to do with Lee's money, leaving behind the tech titan's watch and wallet after stabbing him to death. Instead, as the district attorney 's office alleged, it was a murder of one tech professional by another, motivated by passion. San Francisco Police Sergeant Brent Dittmer, who was the lead detective on the case, says he knew this early on. 'There was a lot of talk that this was random homeless violence in San Francisco – could that have happened? Maybe. But it very quickly appeared that was not the case,' Dittmer tells NBC Dateline's Josh Mankiewicz, in a clip shared with The Independent. The detective pointed out that Lee had still had his watch and wallet when he was found, in the episode 'Under the Bay Bridge' airing Friday evening. Theories circulated online about a possible mugging, but even though Dittmer and his team believed it was something more, they chose to not to publicly dispute the theories. 'If that's the story people are gonna run with, that is an advantage for us because the people who are responsible, we don't want to know what we know.' he said 'Let everybody think that this is whatever's on Twitter at that time. We'll work on what actually happened.' The two-hour episode on Friday features exclusive interviews with Lee's family and friends, as well as colleagues from the tech industry, dramatic surveillance video footage an in-depth look at the timeline leading up to his death, and the investigation that led to an arrest and conviction. Lee's former wife, Krista, also speaks to Dateline, revealing the emotional aftermath his family has endured as she insists he would have never have put himself in such a dangerous situation – which made his murder even more puzzling. 'The main people were saying that 'he must have gotten mugged,'' she said about Lee who was allegedly walking back to his hotel late that night when the attack happened. Krista said she never believed the robbery theory because Lee never walked anywhere. 'He would've Ubered. Especially at that time,' she said. 'And had Bob been approached by someone that was trying to mug him, he would've given him, them, the shirt off his back, his wallet, his keys, his clothes. He would've said, 'Hey, man, let me buy you a meal. Please don't hurt me.'' The 43-year-old beloved tech mogul was found staggering on a deserted downtown street, dripping a trail of blood and calling for help after being stabbed in the early hours of April 4, 2023. He was rushed to a hospital but died of his injuries. Lee's violent death sent shock waves through the tech world and drew national attention. A well-known figure in the tech community, yet there was no clear reason why someone would want to harm him. At one point, his death inflamed debate over public safety in San Francisco as X owner Elon Musk took to the social media site to post that 'violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately.' But later that month, when Nima Momeni, 40, a Bay Area IT consultant, was arrested and charged in Lee's murder, the motive of the killing began to shift. Prosecutors argued that Momeni intended to fatally stab Lee over an argument about his sister, whom Lee knew, and her reported drug use. Momeni said that Lee attacked him with a knife and that he defended himself and Lee was stabbed. In December 2024, after seven days of deliberations, the jury found Momeni guilty of second-degree murder for killing Lee. San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said the verdict showed that the killing was a targeted crime and not an example of random lawlessness in the city. The night of Bob's murder Lee, who had created mobile payment service Cash App and was the chief product officer of the cryptocurrency MobileCoin, had recently moved to Miami to be closer to his ex-wife and their two children, and had returned to the Bay Area for a visit. The afternoon before the stabbing, Lee and Momeni's sister Khazar Momeni had been doing drugs and drinking at the apartment of a drug dealer Lee knew, the Associated Press reported. Lee left before Nima Momeni went to pick up his sister, who told him she had been assaulted. Prosecutors said Momeni was furious with Lee for introducing Khazar to the drug dealer who gave her GHB, known as a date-rape drug, hours before the stabbing. A friend of Lee's testified that Momeni then grilled Lee over the phone about what happened to his sister while at the drug dealer's apartment. He sent text messages saying that the two men were creeps and sexual predators. Momeni later hung out with Lee at his sister's condo until she kicked them out, saying she needed to sleep. Surveillance video shows the two men leaving Khazar Momeni's posh condo around 2 a.m. and getting into Nima Momeni's BMW. Other surveillance footage then shows them getting out of the car near the Bay Bridge, where the stabbing took place. 'That protectiveness of the defendant's little sister is what led to all of this,' prosecutors said. The trial The trial for Momeni began on October 14, 2024, in San Francisco, more than a year after the murder. In his first public statements about the events leading to Lee's death, Momeni testified in his own defense, telling the court that he had joked to Lee that he might want to spend his final night in San Francisco with family rather than trying to find a strip club. Momeni testified that he stopped his car after going over a pothole that caused Lee to spill the beer he was holding. Momeni said he then cracked a joke suggesting Lee should spend the last night of his visit with family instead of trying to find a strip club to keep the party going. That's when he says Lee snapped, yelled at him about questioning his parenting skills and pulled out the knife from his jacket pocket, and attacked. 'I was scared for my life,' Momeni said during trial, in testimony that was rambling and contentious. He said Lee walked away from the encounter, and showed no evidence of being hurt. He didn't realize Lee had died until the following day, he said. 'He's a big famous guy,' he said on the stand. 'I'm just an average joe, an immigrant.' Momeni said he called an attorney when he learned of Lee's death the following day. 'I feel awful to his family, to himself,' Momeni said on the stand. 'He didn't deserve it. I don't think anyone deserved that.' The prosecution mocked Momeni's story, pointing out that he never called police to report Lee's alleged attack or even after he learned Lee had died of stab wounds on the street where he had last seen him. They also said the puncture wounds were clean, clear and deep, and not the result of any kind of self-defense tussle, he said. Just about all of the DNA — 99 percent — found on the handle of the knife belonged to Momeni, the prosecutor said. Prosecutors also showed text messages Khazar Momeni sent her brother, asking where he had dropped off Lee — a question he sidestepped. She sent a text message to Lee checking on him because her brother came 'down hard' on him and to thank him for 'handling it with class.' The jury found the tech consultant guilty of second-degree murder, rejecting the defendant's claim that he had acted in self defense. Momeni faces 16 years to life in prison. He has not yet been sentenced. 'We think justice was done here today,' the victim's brother, Tim Oliver Lee, told reporters following the verdict. 'What matters today is that we had a guilty verdict and Nima Momeni is going away for a very long time.'
NBC News
07-02-2025
- NBC News
Tech titan's murder rocked Silicon Valley. For his loved ones, it was personal.
The daughter of Bob Lee, the tech executive whose fatal stabbing nearly two years ago sent shock waves through Silicon Valley and stoked debate about violent crime in San Francisco, said she felt her 'stomach drop' during the dramatic end to the trial of her father's accused killer. After seven days of deliberations, a jury in December acquitted tech consultant Nima Momeni of first-degree murder in Lee's April 4, 2023, killing. 'I felt a ringing in my ear,' Scout Lee, 16, told 'Dateline' in her first interview about her father's death and the murder trial. 'I just felt so overwhelmed.' 'I grabbed onto my mom's hand and squeezed it and cried,' she added. F or more about the case, tune in to 'Under the Bay Bridge' on "Dateline" at 9 ET/8 CT tonight. Scout — who described herself as her father's 'mini me' — said she felt some relief when, moments after the acquittal was announced, Momeni was convicted of the lesser crime of second-degree murder. 'But I don't know if it was the type of justice that I wanted,' she said, adding that in her view, prosecutors had presented overwhelming evidence that the murder was premeditated. The San Francisco District Attorney's Office accused Momeni, 40, of committing the murder after his sister told him she'd been sexually assaulted by a man who Lee introduced her to. That man, Jeremy Boivin, was never charged in the alleged assault. In his first interview since the trial, Boivin denied the allegation to 'Dateline' and said he never assaulted Momeni's sister, Khazar Momeni. During the trial, which began in October, Momeni testified that he was defending himself when he mortally wounded Lee. He faces a prison term of 16 years to life and plans to appeal his conviction. Momeni's sentencing is set for May 16. A night of partying turns deadly Lee, 43, founded the popular money transfer service Cash App and was an executive at Square and Mobile Coin. He was stabbed three times with a paring knife under the Bay Bridge, east of downtown San Francisco. One of the wounds punctured his heart, San Francisco Police Sgt. Brent Dittmer told 'Dateline.' Lee called 911 around 2:30 a.m. and asked for help dozens of times before collapsing in front of a nearby apartment building, according to audio of the call and security video. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. In the aftermath of Lee's death, some — including Elon Musk — blamed the killing on what they described as out-of-control violent crime in San Francisco. (The city saw a rise in homicides in 2020 and 2021, though that number has since fallen to a near-historic low.) Authorities rejected the assertion — San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins called it 'reckless and irresponsible' — and said the killing had been done by someone Lee knew. At trial, prosecutors said that Momeni was furious after his sister alleged that she'd been assaulted during a small get-together at Boivin's apartment on April 3. Khazar Momeni, who'd been friends with Lee for nearly a decade, testified that the alleged assault occurred while she was high on cocaine, LSD and GHB, a depressant linked to date rape and sexual assaults. She testified that Boivin slapped her butt while her pants were down and she was unable to move. Boivin did not testify at Momeni's trial. In an interview, he acknowledged that he smacked her bottom but said he'd done so 'casually.' He and Khazar Momeni had a physical relationship for months after that event, Boivin said. 'So her saying these allegations is just baseless and really unfounded,' he told 'Dateline.' After the alleged assault, Khazar Momeni testified, she told her brother about what she said happened. A tense phone call between Nima Momeni and Lee followed. The call was overheard by a friend of Lee's who later described the conversation to authorities. 'He is interrogating Bob,' San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Omid Talai told 'Dateline.' 'He is questioning him about what was happening' at the apartment. In the hours after the call, Lee met with Nima and Khazar Momeni at her home. At trial, prosecutors accused Nima Momeni of taking a paring knife from his sister's kitchen, where investigators later found the same brand of blade used in Lee's killing. Authorities had found the 3 ½-inch knife after following a blood trail from the apartment building where Lee collapsed to a fence a half-block away, Dittmer said. The blade was on the other side of the fence. Momeni's defense team described Lee's death as an act of self-defense prompted by Lee's drug-fueled bender. Momeni testified that he'd initially been upset about his sister's allegation of sexual assault, but after speaking with several people who'd been at Boivin's apartment, he said he came to believe her account was likely an exaggeration. After he met with Lee at his sister's place, Momeni testified, the two planned on hanging out together at a strip club. They did cocaine together, Momeni testified, and while en route to the club, Momeni said Lee spilled a beer he'd been drinking. After pulling over to clean up the mess, Momeni testified, Lee found "whippit" canisters in the back seat and began inhaling nitrous-oxide. When Lee said he thought he was going to throw up, Momeni ribbed Lee, asking the executive why he was going out to strip clubs instead of being with his family at home, Momeni testified. "That's when the conversation went from normal to adversarial," Momeni's lawyer, Saam Zangeneh, told "Dateline." According to Momeni's account, the comment enraged Lee, who was divorced and living in Miami but visiting San Francisco. Momeni testified that Lee lunged at him with a knife, prompting Momeni to grab Lee's arm and accidentally push the blade toward his chest. Momeni testified that he left the scene believing Lee was fine. The pain of the courtroom Scout attended parts of the trial and described it as agonizing. The audio from her father's 911 call, she said, 'just keeps ringing in my head.' Her older brother, Sirius Lee, believed he could handle seeing high-resolution security video of his father collapsing. 'I'm pretty strong when it comes to just not showing emotions,' he said. 'The more and more I had to sit through that, the more and more I felt like I was going to genuinely pass out.' Sirius knew about his father's drug use, he said, but it never made him feel unsafe. Scout was less aware of Lee's vices, she said, and it was hard to see him portrayed in a manner at odds with the person she'd always known. 'He wasn't just some party animal that was going out like every single night,' she said. 'He was my dad.' To her, Lee was a dedicated father who always helped with homework and had an approach to parenting that made her feel safe and calm. His death had been especially hard, she said, because in the days before he was stabbed, he'd traveled to San Francisco to see her perform in a play. 'That was one of the biggest roles that I ever had,' she said. 'And he was just hugging me and congratulating me on doing a good job.' 'That was the last time I ever saw him,' she said.
