Nima Momeni, the tech executive charged with fatally stabbing Cash App founder Bob Lee earlier this month in San Francisco, was previously cited on suspicion of assault and battery against a woman in an incident in 2022, according to police records obtained by Business Insider.
A woman in the Bay Area city of Emeryville called police to report that Mr Momeni “attacked” her, “grabbed” her arm, “pulled it” and “pushed her physically,” according to the records.
No charges were filed in the incident.
“The reported incident is a non incident,” a lawyer for Mr Momeni told Insider. “There was no arrest. There was no case filed."
Before being arrested for the 13 April killing of Lee, Mr Momeni had previous run-ins with police, including a dismissed misdemeanor charge for driving under the influence in 2004 and 2011 charges, later dropped, of driving with a suspended license and selling a switchblade.
San Francisco police say Mr Momeni and Lee knew each other, and that the Cash App founder was stabbed in the chest during an argument related to Mr Momeni’s sister.
At some point during the early-morning altercation, Khazar Momeni sent Lee a text message that read, “Just wanted to make sure your doing ok Cause know nima came wayyyyyy down hard on you,” according to court records.
Prosecutors allege the argument involved Mr Momeni asking Lee about “inappropriate” contact with Khazar and drug use, The San Francisco Standard reports.
One of Lee’s friends told police they didn’t know if Lee and Ms Momeni were having an intimate relationship, but that her marriage seemed to be in trouble, according to the website.
Mr Momeni will be arraigned on 25 April. His lawyers have said he intends to plead not guilty.
The brutal murder of Lee shook San Francisco’s close-knit tech community.
The killing was seized on as a sign of persistent troubles with crime in San Francisco.
However, as The Independent has reported, the city is relatively safe for a large metropolis in America, and violent crime rates have largely been declining in San Francisco since peaking in the 1990s, with the beginning of 2022 marking the lowest level of reported violent crime since 1985, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
