The family of Bob Lee has filed a lawsuit against his killer, Nima Momeni, and members of Momeni’s family, accusing them of conspiracy and attempting to destroy evidence following the stabbing in 2023.
The complaint, filed Friday in San Francisco Superior County Court, names as defendants Momeni, who was convicted in December of second-degree murder in Lee’s killing, along with Momeni’s mother, sister, brother-in-law, and several property management entities.
Lee, 43, the founder of CashApp, was stabbed multiple times April 4, 2023, near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and died hours later at a hospital.
At trial, Momeni testified that he acted in self-defense after Lee attacked him first.
According to prosecutors, Momeni picked up Lee from an apartment building in his BMW Z4 Roaster and drove him to a secluded area. There, he stabbed Lee with a kitchen knife taken from his sister’s home. The lawsuit claims Momeni’s relatives later helped him store the BMW away from his home so investigators couldn’t immediately find it. Lee’s family also alleges that Momeni’s family tried to sell the car and deleted information from their cellphones to conceal evidence.
The complaint also accuses the Portside Homeowners Association and Securitas Security Services of improperly releasing surveillance footage showing Lee’s final moments as he staggered down a street bleeding, collapsed several times, and desperately sought help before becoming unresponsive. The footage, which was aired by news outlets, was seen by Lee’s children, causing them significant emotional distress, according to the complaint.
“Bob was a devoted father to his two children,” the lawsuit states. “His untimely death robbed the world of a brilliant mind and a remarkable innovator in technology.”
Lee’s estate and his children are seeking unspecified damages for negligence, wrongful death, aiding and abetting, conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and invasion of privacy.
Momeni’s attorney Saam Zanganeh did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening.
At the time of his death, Lee was in San Francisco visiting his children and attending his daughter’s school play, according to the lawsuit. After building CashApp in 2013, he invested in several startups and later joined cryptocurrency company MobileCoin as chief product officer.
Momeni is due to be sentenced in May. He faces 16 years to life in prison.