Proceedings begin on Monday in the trial of Nima Momeni, the 38-year-old tech entrepreneur accused of murdering the Cash App co-founder Bob Lee in San Francisco last year in a saga that has shaken the tech community.
Momeni is accused of stabbing Lee, 43, to death in the early morning hours of 5 April last year. The two were acquaintances, and had allegedly disputed over Lee’s relationship with Momeni’s sister, Khazar Elyassnia.
Jury selection, the first phase of the trial, begins on Monday morning in San Francisco municipal court. Momeni’s legal team had requested a change of venue due to the high-profile nature of the case, which was denied.
If convicted, Momeni faces 26 years to life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty, with his defense team describing the incident as “a combination of an accident and self-defense” with “no premeditation or deliberation”.
Lee’s death created uproar in the tech community, with prominent executives initially blaming the stabbing on persistent homelessness and the rise of crime in San Francisco. Elon Musk wrote that “many people I know have been severely assaulted”, and criticized the district attorney’s approach to violent crime, eliciting a rebuke from the city prosecutor, the police chief and the mayor.
After Lee’s familiarity with Momeni was revealed, details about alleged drug use and romantic entanglements surrounding it also emerged, casting the alleged crime as more personal than indicative of urban decline.
The San Francisco district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, said Lee and Momeni knew each other, and were together throughout the evening leading up to the killing. Prosecutors have said surveillance footage captured the killing and the events leading up to it.
The day before the stabbing, Momeni had confronted Lee about his relationship with his sister, demanding to know if she “was doing drugs or anything inappropriate”, which Lee denied, according to court filings. The next day, Lee was found with stab wounds at 2.35am in downtown San Francisco. He was transported to a hospital, where he later died of his injuries.
