Cash App founder Bob Lee’s brutal killing was far from a random attack, according to newly released court records.
Rather, the alleged murder, Nima Momeni, stabbed the tech mogul after a disagreement involving Momeni’s younger sister, say the documents, which were obtained by outlets including ABC7 News and NBC News.
Momeni was arraigned in a San Francisco courtroom on Friday and faces up to 26 years in prison. The sister, Khazar, did not respond to text messages from The Daily Beast on Thursday or Friday.
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A witness told authorities that Momeni approached Lee in a hotel room on April 3 and questioned why Lee had earlier picked up his sister from a house, asking “whether his sister was doing drugs or anything inappropriate.” Lee then told Momeni that “nothing inappropriate had happened,” the records say.
After that confrontation, the witness recalled traveling to Lee’s apartment, where the Cash App founder remained until after midnight. It was the last time the witness saw Lee alive.
The next morning, the witness called Momeni’s sister and asked if Lee “had gone to her apartment” on Mission Street, the documents say. The sister conceded that he had stopped by “for a second,” though she insisted that she had fallen “asleep and didn’t know when he left.”
Law enforcement pulled surveillance records from the high-rise, which showed Momeni arriving in a white BMW on the evening of April 3. He was wearing a “white T-shirt and pants.” At 12:39 a.m. on April 4, video records show, Lee arrived dressed entirely in black.
Just after 2 a.m., Lee and Momeni got into an elevator together, and according to the documents they got into Momeni’s white BMW and drove to a “dark and secluded” area.
After standing “on the sidewalk for approximately five minutes,” the subject in the “light-colored top”—which law enforcement believes to be Momeni—“appears to suddenly move toward the other subject.” Authorities believe this was the moment Lee was stabbed.
Lee staggered through the streets and called 911 begging for help, but ultimately succumbed to his injuries. (An autopsy later revealed that he was stabbed three times, “once in the hip and twice in the chest.” One of the wounds pierced his heart, killing him.)
Meanwhile, surveillance footage showed the individual wearing light clothes stop “along the fence line in the immediate area” where investigators later recovered a four-inch kitchen knife. The white BMW then sped away.
A week after the killing, authorities unlocked Lee’s phone and found records of “a FaceTime call between ‘Nima via Khazar’ and Lee.”
They also found a text message from the sister to Lee, in which she said, “Just wanted to make sure you’re doing ok Cause I know nima came wayyyyyy down hard on you And thank you for being such a classy man handling it with class Love you Selfish pricks.”
According to KTVU, Momeni flashed a “heart sign” at his sister and her husband in court on Friday, and they sent him “the heart sign back.”
One of Momeni’s neighbors told The Daily Beast on Thursday that the murder suspect had been acting strangely in the days prior to his arrest. Momeni allegedly tried to give the neighbor a fancy Eames chair out of the blue and asked him whether he wanted to travel together to Colombia.
Instead of taking that trip, Momeni is being held without bail.
