San Francisco police arrested a suspect Thursday morning in connection with last week’s murder. Stabbing death of Cash App creator and fintech pioneer Bob Leeauthorities said.
San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott told reporters at an afternoon news conference that Nima Momeni, 38, was arrested at his home in Emeryville, a suburb between Oakland and Berkeley.
Lee and Momeni, the owner of technology company Expand IT, knew each other, the police chief said.
“Our investigators have been working tirelessly to make this arrest and bring this case to justice for the Lee family, just as we would with every homicide that occurs in this city,” Scott said.
District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said Momeni was being charged with murder and the special enhancement of committing murder with a knife.
Jenkins told reporters that Momeni had not been an “immediate suspect” in the case, but had been identified through an extensive police investigation.
He will be arraigned Friday afternoon and prosecutors will ask the judge to deny him bail, Jenkins said.
News of Momeni’s arrest was first reported by Local Mission.
Police found Lee, 43, with stab wounds in the city center at around 2.35am on April 4. He was taken to a nearby hospital but died from his injuries.
Some in technology, including Elon Musk, owner of TwitterThey had used Lee’s murder to condemn the city as dangerous and criticize what they believed was Lax liberal policies towards crime..
“Many people I know have been seriously assaulted. Violent crime in San Francisco is horrific and even if the attackers are caught, they are often released immediately,” Musk he tweeted on April 5. “Is the city taking stronger action to incarcerate violent repeat offenders @BrookeJenkinsSF?
At the press conference, Jenkins criticized Musk by name, as well as others who made “reckless and irresponsible statements” about Lee’s murder.
Jenkins said these statements “serve to mislead the world in its perceptions of San Francisco and also negatively impact the pursuit of justice for crime victims by spreading misinformation.”
Scott also said Lee’s murder could have happened in any city. “It’s more about human nature and human behavior than it is about our city,” he said.
At the time of his death, Lee was working as a product manager at payments company MobileCoin.
He had previously served as the first chief technology officer at Square, the e-commerce company created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, which is now known as Block.
In that role, Lee created Cash App, which allows users in the US and UK to send money to each other via their mobile phones.
According to its LinkedIn profile, Momeni began expanding IT in 2010. The company provides IT and technology support services to other companies.
A voicemail left with Expand IT seeking comment was not immediately returned.
In a Facebook post, Lee’s brother, Tim Oliver Lee, thanked police for apprehending the suspect.
“We look forward to working with [the] “The district attorney’s office will prosecute the case,” he wrote. “We hope that now our family can begin the healing process.”
