Criminal Justice
Nima Momeni and his mother | Courtesy photo
An attorney for the man who allegedly stabbed tech executive Bob Lee to death in Downtown San Francisco is firing back at reports that her client was accused of domestic battery before the killing.
Nima Momeni, Lee’s alleged murderer, was cited last August on suspicion of misdemeanor battery after a woman told police that he attacked her at his loft in Emeryville, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The woman reportedly said Momeni “grabbed her arm and pulled it, pushed her physically.”
But Momeni’s attorney, Paula Canny, emphasized that the Aug. 1 incident did not result in an arrest or prosecutors filing criminal charges.
“It is a nonissue,” Canny said in a statement to The Standard. “But I understand it does make for a sensational headline.”
A spokesperson for the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office confirmed that the office declined to file charges in the case.
Momeni, an information technology consultant, remains in custody after police arrested him April 13 for allegedly stabbing Lee nine days earlier on a darkened street beneath the Bay Bridge. Prosecutors say Momeni drove Lee to the secluded spot on Main Street near Bryant Street and stabbed him three times with a kitchen knife.
The killing drew national attention as video surfaced of Lee, a co-creator of the Cash App and chief product officer of MobileCoin, staggering on the sidewalk in search of help. Many prominent voices in the tech industry assumed Lee was the victim of a random street crime. But police contend that Lee and his alleged attacker, Momeni, knew each other.
Lee spent part of his last day with Momeni’s sister, Khazar Momeni. Prosecutors say Nima Momeni was upset with Lee and questioned him in the hours before the stabbing about whether his sister was “doing drugs or anything inappropriate.”
Momeni is due back in court April 25.
Michael Barba can be reached at [email protected]
