January 17, 2025
Iranian-American Nima Momeni has been found guilty of second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Bob Lee, a verdict reached by a San Francisco jury after seven days of deliberations. The verdict of second-degree murder carries a 16-year to life sentence and includes an “enhancement” for using a knife in the crime. Momeni was found not guilty of the more serious charge of pre-meditated first-degree murder.
Momeni and Lee were both active figures in the tech community centered around San Francisco Bay, but the clash between them centered on Momeni’s sister and her relationship with Lee. Prosecutor Omid Talai, also an Iranian-American, was present in the courtroom for the verdict.
Momeni’s mother, Mahnaz Momeni, was also present. But his sister, Khazar Momeni, who figured prominently in the case, was not in attendance when the verdict was read in court December 17. The judge issued a stern warning in the courtroom for those present not to have any audible reaction to the verdict as it was read.
Momeni was seen dabbing his eyes as he listened to the verdict. Outside the courtroom, Lee’s brother, Timothy Oliver Lee, said the family was satisfied with the verdict. “We’re happy with the result today. We’re happy that Nima Momeni won’t be on the streets, no longer has the opportunity to harm anyone else in this world,” he said.
“The verdict of murder two will put him away for a long time.” Lee said the proceedings showed that Momeni’s family was complicit in the crime by trying to help him cover it up and had “blood on their hands.” Bob Lee was found dying of stab wounds in a doorway in an otherwise empty street in downtown San Francisco not far from the Giants’ baseball park.
He had been stabbed four times in the hip and heart and had called 911 screaming for aid. Prosecutors said Momeni had driven Lee to that secluded locale, stabbed him and drove off, leaving Lee there. San Francisco District At torney Brooke Jenkins was on hand for the verdict and pushed back on what Elon Musk and others said after the stabbing happened; critics claimed San Francisco was lawless and out of control as a result of Democratic officials doing nothing to fight urban crime. Musk and others had assumed at first that Lee was the victim of a random killing, rather than targeted by a personal friend.
“I think that, hopefully now, we have once again established what truly happened here. We all know that, after Bob Lee was murdered, Elon Musk took to Twitter to make an effort to really shame San Francisco, and to make it seem like this was about lawlessness in San Francisco and about what’s going on in our streets,” Jenkins said.
Momeni was accused of fatally stabbing Lee in a secluded part of San Francisco’s East Cut neighborhood under the Bay Bridge April 4, 2023. Prosecutors accused Momeni of stabbing Lee with a kitchen paring knife following a heated discussion regarding his sister’s relationship with Lee as well as their ongoing drug use.
During the trial, Momeni’s lawyers claimed that their client acted in self-defense, alleging that Lee lunged at Momeni with a knife in his hand while high on ketamine and cocaine. The defense said Lee became erratic and aggressive after Momeni made a “bad joke” at the expense of Lee’s family.
The prosecution said Momeni killed Lee in a fit of anger after learning that Lee had introduced his sister to dealers who drugged and abused her. Momeni said he did not know that Lee was injured when the two men parted ways. The six-week trial was punctuated by dramatic testimony, including an appearance on the stand of Momeni’s sister, Khazar Momeni.
She testified as a witness for the prosecution but insisted during her first day of testimony that her brother didn’t kill Lee. She also detailed consuming several drugs with Lee and others in the days leading up to the fatal stabbing. Nima Momeni testified that on April 3, his sister called and asked him to pick her up from the apartment of a friend of Lee’s whom the sister described as her drug dealer.
The sister testified that she told her brother she might have been sexually assaulted after she took the drug GHB. Prosecutors alleged in court documents that on the night of the killing, a witness saw Momeni questioning Lee “regarding whether his sister was doing drugs or anything inappropriate” and that Lee reassured Momeni that nothing had happened. During cross-examination by defense attorneys, Khazar Momeni described Lee as “all over the place” and “aggressive” while high on drugs.
Her testimony was criticized outside the courtroom by Lee’s ex-wife Krista Lee, who accused Khazar of trying to “make herself a victim.” The testimony turned contentious when Nima Momeni took the stand, as the defendant sparred with the prosecution during cross-examination after earlier describing how Lee allegedly attacked him while his defense team questioned him about the confrontation.
Momeni claimed that he had to defend himself when Lee pulled out the knife. Momeni said that there was a struggle over the weapon and that eventually Lee walked away down the street but that Momeni did not know Lee had been stabbed.
San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Omid Talai challenged Momeni’s version of the story and focused on his actions immediately after Lee’s death, including his calls to attorneys and text messages with his sister.
The case wrapped up in the first week of December with prosecutors trying to tear down Momeni’s defense in their closing arguments and asking why he didn’t call police or tell anyone about Lee allegedly attacking him. The defense showed a video during their closing arguments, presenting surveillance footage they claimed showed Lee doing cocaine on the street outside a private club with the same knife used to kill him hours later.
Defense attorney Saam Zangeneh, also Iranian-American, used a cardboard cutout of the knife in court so the jury could see the size of the paring knife he said the video proved Lee had in his possession all along. That video sparked a tense exchange between Zangeneh and Lee’s former wife, who let out a loud, mocking laugh as Zanganeh showed the footage.
Zangeneh turned to directly address her, saying it wasn’t funny. Prosecutors quickly objected and the judge intervened to restore order in the courtroom. Nima Momeni, 40, was described as a “tech entrepreneur” when he was arrested for the murder seven days after the stabbing. According to his LinkedIn page, Momeni is the owner of Expand IT. His profile describes the company as providing IT solutions in the Bay Area since 2010. Neighbors who lived near Momeni were shocked to hear of his arrest. After Momeni was taken into custody, Bay Area public relations veteran Sam Singer who worked next door to Momeni said he had never had any issues with the defendant beyond hearing music being played a bit too loudly. “Warm, welcoming, very nice fellow, like any other tech consultant here in the Bay Area, lives in a live-work space,” Singer said.
“He handed us a stack of cards and said, ‘If you ever need anything, let me know.’” It later emerged that Khazar Momeni had introduced Lee to her brother, thinking that the successful Cash App founder might collaborate with him on one of Nima’s projects.
A successful Bay Area technology executive, Bob Lee was best known as one of the creators and founders of the digital wallet Cash App. Lee had also worked at Google as a staff software engineer in the early 2000s, helping to develop the mobile operating system used by Android cellphones.
In 2010, he was recruited by the San Francisco e-commerce company Square, Inc., where he became chief technology officer before eventually moving on to Cash App. At the time of his death, Lee was working as the chief product officer of the cryptocurrency MobileCoin. Lee was living in suburban Mill Valley with his family, including his then-wife Krista and two children, but the couple separated in 2019.
Lee had subsequently moved to Miami in 2022 to live with his father and was visiting San Francisco on business when he was fatally stabbed. The Wall Street Journal reported that Lee and Khazar Momeni belonged to a sex and drugs-fueled underground party scene known in wealthy Bay Area tech circles as “The Lifestyle.”
The medical examiner’s report revealed the tech executive died on the operating table and was found to have alcohol, cocaine and ketamine in his system, which the defense argued had made Lee aggressive.