A tech consultant, Nima Momeni, has been sentenced to 16 years to life in prison for the stabbing murder of Bob Lee, the founder of popular mobile payment platform Cash App, more than three years after the killing shocked the technology industry.
Momeni was sentenced on Tuesday by Judge Alexandra Gordon of the San Francisco Superior Court after the court rejected his request for a new trial.
His lawyers have, however, indicated that they intend to appeal the conviction.
A jury in December 2024 found Momeni guilty of second-degree murder, rejecting his claim that he stabbed Lee in self-defence. He has remained in custody since his arrest, nine days after Lee was killed on April 4, 2023.
During the sentencing proceedings, members of Lee’s family addressed the court, recounting the devastating impact of his death on their lives.
His 18-year-old daughter, Scout Lee, delivered an emotional statement directly to Momeni, accusing him of destroying not only her father’s life but also the future his family had envisioned with him.
“You did not just end his life, you ended an entire future built around a man,” she said, according to media reports.
Momeni, who appeared in court wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, continued to maintain that he acted in self-defence.
Addressing Lee’s family, he said he understood their grief but insisted that their accounts of the incident differed fundamentally from his own.
“Unfortunately, we have completely different understandings of what transpired,” he said.
Lee, 43, was discovered staggering along a deserted street in downtown San Francisco in the early hours of April 4, 2023, bleeding heavily and calling for help. He was subsequently rushed to a hospital, where he died from his injuries.
Prosecutors told the court that Momeni deliberately planned the attack, alleging that he drove Lee to an isolated location beneath the Bay Bridge before stabbing him three times with a kitchen knife taken from his sister’s home.
One of the wounds penetrated Lee’s heart, causing fatal injuries.
According to the prosecution, Momeni was angry with Lee over allegations involving his younger sister, who reportedly accused a drug dealer introduced to her by Lee of giving her GHB and other substances before sexually assaulting her.
Prosecutors argued that the dispute motivated Momeni to attack Lee and that the killing was not an act of self-defence, as he repeatedly claimed.
Momeni presented a different account of the events during his testimony, insisting that Lee was the aggressor and that he had acted to protect himself.
He told the court that he confronted Lee after becoming upset that Lee appeared more interested in finding a strip club than spending time with his family.
Momeni, who studies martial arts, claimed that Lee attacked him with a knife during the confrontation, forcing him to defend himself. He further testified that he did not realise he had inflicted fatal injuries on Lee or that Lee had even been seriously hurt.
Although jurors found him guilty of second-degree murder, they rejected the more serious first-degree murder charge brought against him.
A first-degree murder conviction would have required prosecutors to establish that Momeni deliberately and willfully planned the killing with premeditation. However, the jury concluded that the evidence supported a second-degree murder conviction, which does not require proof of premeditation.
Lee was a prominent figure in the technology industry. He created Cash App, a mobile payment service that became widely used for transferring money, and was serving as chief product officer of cryptocurrency company MobileCoin at the time of his death.
He had recently relocated from the San Francisco Bay Area to Miami but returned to California for a visit shortly before he was killed.
His former wife, Krista Lee, and their two children remained in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The sentencing brings a major stage of the legal proceedings over Lee’s killing to a close, although Momeni’s planned appeal could prolong the legal battle surrounding one of the most widely publicised killings involving a prominent figure in the technology industry.