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Tech executive Nima Momeni has been convicted of murdering Cash App founder Bob Lee, bringing to a conclusion a criminal tale that transfixed Silicon Valley and highlighted concerns about street crime in San Francisco.
Lee, who founded the digital wallets service more than a decade ago, was stabbed three times on April 4 2023, in San Francisco’s Rincon Hill neighbourhood. He was a well-known tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, and at the time of his death was the chief product officer of cryptocurrency start-up MobileCoin.
Lee died from his wounds in hospital after being discovered bleeding in the street at about 2.30am. Police arrested Momeni for the killing 10 days later.
A jury convicted Momeni, 40, of second-degree murder on Tuesday after seven days of deliberations. He faces a sentence of 16 years to life imprisonment, district attorney Brooke Jenkins said.
According to Momeni’s LinkedIn profile, he is the owner of Expand IT, a San Mateo, California-based company that provided IT solutions in the Bay Area since 2010.
Prosecutors made the case that Momeni had stabbed Lee to death in revenge for the alleged sexual assault of his sister. Momeni’s lawyers argued Lee had attacked their client first while high on ketamine and cocaine.
Critics of San Francisco seized on the killing as a sign the city’s liberal politics and significant social issues such as homelessness and drug use had spiralled out of control and led to lawlessness.
Lee’s murder attracted significant national interest, which fuelled a narrative that San Francisco was in a “doom loop” because of a growing reputation for severe urban decay.
Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of companies including Tesla and SpaceX, posted on X after the killing that “violent crime in SF is horrific”, while Jason Calacanis, a tech investor, wrote the city was in “utter chaos”.
Jenkins defended San Francisco following the jury verdict on Tuesday, saying the murder was not a random act of violence.
She said: “We’ve once again established what truly happened here. After Bob Lee’s murder, Elon Musk took to Twitter to really make an effort to shame San Francisco and make it seem like this was about lawlessness in San Francisco and about what’s going on out on our streets. Today proved once and again that we’re a city committed to accountability. We’re a city committed to public safety.”
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