Nima Momeni
Introduction
Nima Momeni β a 42-year-old Emeryville, California IT consultant β was sentenced on November 10, 2026 to 16 years to life in state prison for the April 4, 2023 stabbing death of Bob Lee, the Cash App founder and tech executive whose killing beneath the Bay Bridge shocked Silicon Valley. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Alexandra Gordon imposed the term nearly two years after a jury found Momeni guilty of second-degree murder on December 17, 2024, at the close of a two-month trial, and immediately after she denied his motion for a new trial from the bench in a ruling that took more than an hour to deliver. Momeni, who has been in jail for almost four years, will receive credit for time served, and his attorneys said they plan to appeal.
Background Information
Lee β an executive at Square, which created Cash App, and later at MobileCoin β was stabbed three times with a kitchen knife in the Rincon Hill neighborhood in the early-morning hours of April 4, 2023, twice in the chest and once in the hip. His death was immediately seized on by figures including Elon Musk, who posted about it as an example of San Francisco’s lax stance toward violent crime, feeding what Mission Local describes as a false narrative of rampant city chaos. When Momeni was arrested nine days later, it became clear the two men were acquaintances and the killing erupted from a personal dispute: Lee had befriended Momeni’s younger sister, Khazar Momeni, a wealthy socialite, and the pair partied together, sometimes with Nima Momeni. The Momeni family had fled Iran because of abuse by their father; Nima built a new life in the Bay Area as a tech executive before his adult life began to unravel in the lead-up to the crime.
The day before the killing, Khazar Momeni was partying at the home of drug dealer Jeremy Boivin when Lee stopped by with a friend; after Lee left, she took GHB and woke up nearly naked in Boivin’s bed, according to trial testimony, and claimed she had been sexually assaulted. Nima Momeni and his brother-in-law, plastic surgeon Dino Ellyansian, retrieved the inebriated Khazar from the apartment. Later that evening, Lee stopped at Khazar’s Millennium Tower home, where Nima was also present; video footage showed the two men leaving together and stopping at the foot of the Bay Bridge, where prosecutors say Momeni stabbed Lee.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Convicted; sentenced to 16 years to life. A San Francisco jury found Nima Momeni guilty of second-degree murder on December 17, 2024, after a two-month trial over the April 4, 2023 stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee. On November 10, 2026 β after Judge Alexandra Gordon denied his motion for a new trial alleging ineffective counsel and prosecutorial and juror misconduct β she sentenced Momeni to 15 years to life plus one year for a weapons enhancement, with credit for the nearly four years he has already served, lifetime probation upon release, and restitution and fees. His attorneys said they plan to appeal.
Prosecutors built their case on the theory that Momeni killed Lee in a fit of rage over the alleged sexual assault of his sister, whom they said Lee had introduced to the drug dealer who assaulted her. The defense claimed Momeni acted in self-defense against Lee β who they alleged attacked him after Momeni told him he should be home with his family, not out partying β and portrayed Lee as unstable from a bender of cocaine, alcohol and other substances. Blurry surveillance footage captured the lunge on Main Street between Folsom and Harrison streets, with Lee stumbling down the block afterward and a figure presumed to be Momeni hurling an object over a fence; the kitchen knife, which matched the cutlery at Khazar Momeni’s apartment, was discovered shortly after the stabbing, and Lee, bleeding, called 911 while trying unsuccessfully to flag down cars.
The two-month trial featured testimony from Khazar Momeni and from Boivin, a man accused of being Lee’s drug dealer, as well as from Momeni himself; jurors saw grainy video of the killing, heard arguments over the size of the knife, watched a defense tactician claim Lee’s wounds proved self-defense, and were shown a video of Momeni allegedly acting out the stabbing with a defense investigator. Momeni fired his first defense attorney before hiring a team of high-profile Florida lawyers led by Saam Zangeneh, and argued before trial that he could not get a fair hearing in San Francisco because its jury pool of tech workers was biased. The jury found him guilty of second-degree murder β willful killing without premeditation β on December 17, 2024.
Sentencing was delayed nearly two years as his legal team pushed for a new trial, at one point invoking allegations of racial bias under the Racial Justice Act. The motion hearing on November 10 ran nearly two hours, with claims including inadequate counsel, attorney mischaracterizations and even that Judge Gordon had made inappropriate facial expressions during the trial; Gordon found none of them grounds for a retrial and detailed her denial in a bench ruling lasting more than an hour before issuing the sentence just after 2 p.m. from the Hall of Justice. Momeni, in an orange jail jumpsuit, addressed both families, reiterating his self-defense claim: “While we have completely different understandings of what transpired … I want you to know how truly sorry and regretful I feel for what both of our families have had to feel during this process.”
Public Reaction and Consequences
Lee’s family confronted Momeni in court. His brother, Oliver Lee, told the judge: “I’ve been sitting through 19 days of trial, watching him take the stand and lie and tear down my brother while Bob wasn’t there to answer. Bob has had no voice. That ends today,” and, weeping, “No sentence brings back Bob … there will always be a piece missing. And Nima Momeni will always be the man who tried to take Bob’s light out of this world.” He thanked Gordon for imposing the maximum term, adding, “He got to call his mother; Bob got a 911 call.” Lee’s 18-year-old daughter Scout, who was 14 when her father was killed, said, “My world did not just shift … it shattered,” and addressed Momeni directly: “You did not just end his life, you ended an entire future built around a man.”
Momeni’s mother, Mahnaz Tayarani, sat in court holding a placard of her son’s face framed by a heart, opened with condolences to the Lee family, and asked Gordon to “consider the whole person he is,” telling the court that “a person’s life can be more than the worst moment of his life.” The case β with its cast of celebrity lawyers, a glamorous and troubled sister, a wealthy plastic surgeon, and at least one book β splashed across tabloid headlines for years, and members of both families described the sentencing as another tragic day.
Current Status
Momeni is in custody serving his 16-years-to-life term, with credit for the almost four years he has spent in jail since his April 2023 arrest; once released he will be on probation for the rest of his life, with restitution and fees still to be determined. His attorneys said they plan to appeal the conviction and the denial of the new-trial motion. Separately, Lee’s family filed a wrongful-death suit last March against Momeni’s sister and mother in San Francisco Superior Court, claiming they helped cover up the murder β that suit is still ongoing. Momeni’s own $17 million defamation suit against the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Standard, the New York Post and photojournalist Paul Kuroda over coverage of his case was struck by a judge this year for failure to pay court fees.
Impact on Their Career/Life
A tech consultant who once ran his own IT firm in Emeryville, Momeni now goes to state prison as a convicted murderer, with the parole board holding the keys for at least the next fifteen years and a lifetime of probation waiting if he is ever released. The case outlived the verdict: the killing became a national talking point in the debate over San Francisco crime after Musk and others seized on it, a false street-crime narrative local reporters spent years correcting, and the victim’s family continues to pursue the people around him in civil court. His own attempt to sue the press for $17 million collapsed on an unpaid filing fee β while the story he tried to silence ended with a judge pronouncing sentence on him for murder.
Sources
- NY Post, “Killer of CashApp founder learns fate for brutal SF murder,” Nov 10, 2026 β source
- @nypost trigger tweet, Nov 10, 2026 β source
- The San Francisco Standard, “Nima Momeni sentenced to 16 years to life for murder of Cash App founder Bob Lee,” Nov 10, 2026 β source
- Courthouse News Service, “Man convicted of murdering Cash App CEO sentenced to 16 years to life,” Nov 10, 2026 β source
- Mission Local, “Bob Lee’s killer, Nima Momeni, gets 16 years to life for Cash App founder’s stabbing,” Nov 10, 2026 β source
- KTVU FOX 2, “CashApp founder killing: Nima Momeni sentenced nearly two years after conviction,” Nov 10, 2026 β source