ALBAWABA- An acquaintance of Bob Lee, a prominent tech executive and founder of Cash App who was fatally stabbed in San Francisco earlier this month, has been arrested on suspicion of murder.
Nima Momeni, a 38-year-old tech entrepreneur and consultant who runs an enterprise tech business in the East Bay city of Emeryville, was taken into custody after an intense investigation. Police said that Momeni, who is known to have known Lee personally, was booked on Thursday morning into the San Francisco County Jail and is scheduled to be arraigned on a murder charge on Friday.
The killing has been the subject of recriminations and heightened tensions between the city and the tech sector that is so critical to the city’s economic fate. The tech community has been highly critical of San Francisco’s crime rates in the wake of the murder, but law enforcement officials said that Lee’s killing did not fit a pattern of random violence.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); -->Rates of violent crime have dipped or held steady over the past several years in San Francisco. National crime data showed that the city’s murder rate in 2020 was low compared to that of other major American cities. Nonetheless, the killing has generated waves of recriminations and heightened tensions between the city and the tech sector that is so critical to the city’s economic fate.
Jason Calacanis, a tech investor and entrepreneur, tweeted on Thursday that “anyone who walks a couple of blocks in San Francisco knows how dangerous the city is,” using slang to refer to the affluent Pacific Heights neighborhood. Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco district attorney, criticized what she said were “reckless and irresponsible statements” portraying the city as a hotbed of violent crime. Chief executive of Twitter and Tesla Elon Musk spoke out about the prominence of violence in the city.
The arrest, which was first reported by Mission Local, capped days of speculation around the death of Lee, 43, a tech executive who was found bleeding by emergency medical workers on a sidewalk. The authorities and family members said he had been in San Francisco on business at the time of the assault. Police officials declined to discuss details of the case or the motive, and Lee’s brother said that his family was not well acquainted with the suspect, whom he portrayed as one among many tech entrepreneurs in his brother’s orbit
