When doubts and questions arose about the security situation in San Francisco, the police eventually charged a suspect with murder. To everyone's surprise, the suspect was acquainted with the deceased.
In the early morning of April 4, local time, Bob Lee, the developer of the US version of Alipay's Cash App, known for playing with Bitcoin, was assassinated on the street.
Police records from surveillance and subsequent disclosure showed that Bob, who was stabbed three times, did not die instantly, perhaps because his desire to survive still made him stagger to the passing car for help, and pulled his shirt to show his injuries.
But the owner did not care about Bob's wounds, and chose to leave Bob, who had fallen to the ground, and walked away.
Bob, who had failed to ask for help, also went to a nearby building, but also found nothing.
In the end, Bob could only dial 911 and shout for help on the other end of the phone to save himself. Six minutes later, police arrived at the scene and took Bob to hospital, but it was too late.
The well-known figure in Silicon Valley's tech scene eventually died.
Surveillance footage shows Bob Lee walking toward the apartment complex after being stabbed
Bob, who has worked in Silicon Valley for many years, recently moved to Miami and is a father of two. I happened to be working in San Francisco for the two days of the crime, but I didn't expect to encounter the scourge of killing.
At any stage where evidence is pending, everyone thinks it is random violence. Musk, who loves Twitter, is one of them.
He immediately expressed his insight, asking the San Francisco District Attorney to take tougher measures against violent criminals. Musk tweeted: "Many people I know have been badly beaten."
Suddenly, people mourning Bob's death pointed to the frequent violence in San Francisco and throughout the United States. The ineffective San Francisco police and unsafe San Francisco communities have become the target of public criticism.
It took 8 days for San Francisco police to get a chance to clear the "stigma."
On April 12, local time, San Francisco police raided an apartment in suburban California in the early morning and took Nima Momeni, also a tech company owner, away. The murder weapon was a kitchen knife dropped near the crime scene.
Bob Lee and Nima Momeni
Two days later, Momeni was formally charged with murder. Although Momeni appeared in San Francisco courtroom that day in uniform prison attire, he did not say much. The formal arraignment, scheduled for the same day, was also postponed until April 25, during which time Momeni will not be released on bail.
However, some key information was leaked through court documents, such as that the suspect Momeni and Bob knew each other and that the two had clashed before the crime because of Momeni's sister, Khazar Momeni.
Business disputes or emotional entanglements?
If only the identities of the two people are put on display, the public may wonder whether the case is related to the commercial competition between technology companies, and perhaps the ridicule that "business war is a direct stab with a real knife" is the truth.
After all, the deceased Bob worked at well-known technology companies such as Google and Square and made the Cash app; The suspect, Momeni, is the owner of another technology company, Expand IT, which focuses on IT infrastructure and cybersecurity.
However, the testimony of Momeni's neighbors seems to have made the possibility of "commercial disputes" much lower.
According to the New York Post, Momeni's neighbor Sam Singer does not think that Momeni has a "traditional" technology company - except for the cleaning staff, Singer has not seen anyone else in the house, let alone employees.
Suspicion aside, as a public relations professional, Singh was still shocked by Momeni's arrest. Because in Singh's mind, Momeni was a "warm, very nice gentleman."
The available information about the reasons for Bob's victimization points more to his private life.
Where Bob Lee was attacked
Witnesses to the case said Bob spent most of April 3 drinking in his apartment with Momeni's sister Khazar.
Bob then went with the witness to Bob's hotel room, where Momeni called Bob to ask if Khazar had taken drugs or done anything inappropriate.
The two got into an argument, and Bob had to assure Momeni that nothing wrong had happened.
Investigators also revealed text messages written by Khazar to Bob.
In the text message, Khazar sent Bob the following message, "Just want to make sure you're doing well, because I know Nima (Momeni) is too you... Love you, selfish bastard. ”
Although the witness was a friend of Bob, he said he did not know whether there was an inappropriate intimate relationship between Bob and Khazar, but felt that Khazar's marriage seemed to be in trouble.
Yes, Khazar is married and her husband is a well-known plastic surgeon in San Francisco. Bob, on the other hand, is divorced. Public information shows that his ex-wife and two teenage daughters live in the Bay Area.
Khazar is married and her husband is a plastic surgeon / The man wearing sunglasses in the picture is Khazar
At 12:30 a.m. that day, the witness separated from Bob. Surveillance records show Bob going to Khazar's residence, the Millennium Building, and leaving in Momeni's vehicle around 2 o'clock, where he was killed.
A terrifying detail is that the kitchen knife is the tool of this crime. In other words, when Momeni came out of Khazar's apartment, he may have had the idea of committing a crime. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why knives that should have appeared in the kitchen appeared in the car.
His ex-wife Krista later mentioned in an interview with foreign media that she felt that the words "Momeni" were very familiar, and she might have met Khazar before, but she didn't understand why Nima Momeni attacked Bob, who had just moved to Miami.
Whether it is a corporate struggle or a personal feud is still undecided. But the deceased has passed away, and the public has spontaneously left a memorial flower at the site of Bob's murder to mourn the big man who was killed.
Shake up Silicon Valley
In any case, when the news of Bob's death came, many of his Silicon Valley-rooted peers had a hard time accepting the news. Because Bob, who developed the Cash app, was once a celebrity in the tech circle.
Bob started his career as a web developer in 1997, working for several tech companies such as Capgemini and Redrock. Bob joined Google in 2004 as a senior engineer to help develop the Android core library for Google, eventually leaving in 2010.
After joining Cash app parent company Square (later renamed Block), Bob was also responsible for Android app development and officially became Square's Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in 2013.
Bob's first big thing after becoming CTO was to lead the team to develop the remittance software Cash app, which was valued at more than $3.25 billion.
Money transfer software Cash app
At the time, the software was seen by the company as a rival to traditional banks, because consumers only needed a debit card to enable peer-to-peer transfers. While simplifying the steps, the Cash App also eliminates delays when making online payments.
In the past few years, the functionality of the Cash app has been greatly fleshed out, with features such as digital wallets and stock trading, which are no longer limited to transferring money.
The most famous of these is its Bitcoin transaction feature, which quickly increases the revenue generation of the cash app and takes the software a step closer to financial services.
According to company data, Cash App's revenue reached $10.63 billion in 2022. Although this revenue figure fell 14% year-on-year, $7.11 billion of that revenue came from bitcoin transactions, accounting for about 66.9%.
However, these bright revenues have nothing to do with Bob. Bob left the Cash app in 2014. There is no doubt that the large profits of the Cash app over the years are inseparable from Bob's efforts at the beginning of its founding.
Bob, who left Cash app, did not leave the tech industry, and in 2021 he chose to join another cryptocurrency company, MobileCoin, as chief product officer.
That same year, MobileCoin just closed a $66 million Series B funding round with a valuation of $1.066 billion.
In addition to being a tech executive, Bob is also an angel investor. Over the past few years, he has been keen to invest in startups, with Space X, Title and Netswitch all of his investments.
Bob's rich experience in the technology industry has allowed Bob to meet many insiders, including Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.
People put flowers and cards on the site of Bob Lee's assassination to express their condolences
As a result, news of his death came as many tech executives publicly expressed their condolences and praised him for his warmth and kindness.
Figma CEO Dylan Field, for example, expressed regret and disbelief on Twitter, saying he met him when he was 14 years old and that Bob was an early supporter of his company.
Bob's current boss, Goldbad, CEO of MobileCoin, is also among them. The most crucial part of Goldbad's statement for the public was that he confirmed Bob's death almost immediately.
But in this condolence, Goldbad did not say much about the organizational changes that will occur after the loss of Bob, whom he calls "the engine."
Compared to Bob, Momeni, who is currently identified as a suspect, and even his sister Khazar are not well-known figures. There is little public information about the two.
A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Momeni's LinkedIn shows that he has been working in technology since 2005 and is also bilingual in English and Persian in the Bay Area. Since 2010, he has declared himself the boss of Expand IT.
Beneath the shiny surface, Momeni is also a prisoner with a criminal conviction. In 2004, Momeni was detained for drunk driving, while in 2011 he was jailed for carrying a switchblade.
For Khazar, the public knows even less about it. The only public information is also thanks to her husband, Elyassnia, a San Francisco plastic surgeon who does not resist the spotlight and is active on social platforms and in interviews.
Khazar
The couple has always been very affectionate about the image shown by the outside world, and Eliasnia has praised Khazar in interviews and social platforms many times. But when attending the murder trial, the two were very silent, facing the reporters surrounded by a group, with only one "no comment".
Even if the insider is unwilling to come forward to explain now, it does not hurt to satisfy everyone's exploration of the truth. If nothing else, the truth will also be revealed at the April 25 trial.
The pictures in the article come from the Internet
Author | Early feathers
New Media Editor | Day one
Typesetting | Zewei