A San Francisco jury found Nima Momeni guilty of second-degree murder Tuesday after seven days of deliberation in a closely watched trial that garnered national attention with its focus on the city’s tech elite and troubled streets.
Cash App founder Bob Lee was stabbed three times on April 4, 2023, under the Bay Bridge in San Francisco’s Rincon Hill neighborhood. Police arrested Momeni 10 days later; he was charged with murder and held in jail.
Momeni faces a prison sentence of 16 years to life, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said.
“This man deserves life in prison as far as I’m concerned,” Lee’s ex-wife Krista Lee said after the verdict was announced.
The packed courtroom was silent as the clerk read the verdict in a hushed tone. The jury found Momeni not guilty of first-degree murder, eliciting a sigh from the audience. Members of the crowd could be heard shuffling in their seats as the guilty verdict on the second-degree murder charge was announced.
“We’re happy with the result today,” Lee’s brother Oliver Lee said. “We’re happy that Nima Momemi will not be on the streets and no longer has the opportunity to harm anyone else.”
The district attorney’s office said Momeni murdered Lee because of his role in an alleged sexual assault of his sister Khazar Momeni. According to testimony in court, at a party the day before the murder, Khazar Momeni took the date-rape drug GHB with Lee’s friend Jeremy Boivin. She later woke half-naked and called her brother and husband for help. She told Momeni she had been sexually assaulted by Boivin.
Momeni’s team attempted to paint a different picture: that he acted in self-defense in an attack by Lee. Momeni told jurors he had no animosity toward the tech founder. He claimed he was attacked after suggesting that Lee should be home with his family instead out partying.
After Lee’s murder, Elon Musk criticized San Francisco as a city run amok. Jenkins, speaking to reporters, said the verdict proves that critics were wrong.
“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,” said Jenkins. “Today proved once and again that we’re a city committed to accountability. We’re a city committed to public safety.”
The district attorney’s team presented to jurors a grainy video that appeared to show Lee and Momeni under the bridge. The video indicated that Momeni was the aggressor. A later video taken by police, who had surveilled Momeni, showed him reenacting the killing.
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Momeni claimed that as he was being attacked, he grabbed Lee’s hand and turned the blade on Lee.
DNA evidence on the knife’s handle linked Momeni to the murder weapon; he testified that he touched it only to toss it over a fence.
The physical evidence was paired with testimony that called Momeni a “psycho” who put fear into his sister, who at one point threatened to call police if he didn’t explain what had happened to Lee.
“In a world where the powerful and well-connected sometimes act as though they are immune to consequences, it is heartening to see a jury of ordinary San Franciscans demonstrate that if you break the law, you will be held accountable,” said Assistant District Attorneys Omid Talai and Dane Reinstedt in a press release. “Bob leaves behind an impressive legacy, not just in the business world, but more importantly, in each of the people whose lives he impacted as a philanthropist, friend, brother, son, and father.”