A self-proclaimed tech consultant was arrested Thursday in the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee last week in San Francisco.
Lee is known for creating the widely used mobile payment service Cash App while working as chief technology officer of the payment company Square (now known as Block). Also, he was the chief product officer for the cryptocurrency firm MobileCoin at the time of his death.
Law enforcement officials state that Lee was found with stab wounds in the Rincon Hill neighborhood of San Francisco at 2:30 a.m. April 4th, he died at the hospital. The police chief refused to disclose the possible motive nor has the weapon been found.
This Thursday, Police identified a man named Nima Momeni, a tech entrepreneur and consultant whom family members said Mr. Lee had been acquainted with. Momeni was taken into custody in the East Bay city of Emeryville after an intense investigation over claims that the killings of the professional class were vulnerable to random attacks. He was booked into the San Francisco County Jail and is scheduled to be arraigned on a murder charge Friday.
Prosecutors will ask a judge to hold him without bail and it is not clear whether Momeni will have an attorney who could speak on his behalf. However, criminal records show he was charged with carrying a switchblade in 2011, which was later dismissed the following year after he took a plea.
The death of Lee shocked the tech industry, with friends and former colleagues mourning the demise of a brilliant and generous man.
“Bob loved being in San Francisco, and San Francisco loved Bob. Walking down the street would sometimes be difficult because every young person with a dream would search him out, and he would make time for everyone,” Lee’s brother wrote.
Prominent tech leaders including billionaire Elon Musk, took to Twitter to mourn Lee’s death saying that crime in San Francisco is “horrific” and that even when attackers are caught they are later released. To which top city officials pushed against the narrative, “I must point out that reckless and irresponsible statements like those contained in Mr.Musk tweet that assumed incorrect circumstances about Mr. Lee’s death serves to mislead the world in their perceptions of San Francisco.”
