The tech marketing consultant convicted within the stabbing demise of Money App founder Bob Lee was sentenced in San Francisco on Tuesday to 16 years to life to jail.
A jury in December 2024 discovered Nima Momeni responsible of second-degree homicide, rejecting the defendant’s declare that he had acted in self-defense. He has remained in custody since his arrest 9 days after the April 4, 2023, killing.
Earlier than imposing the sentence, San Francisco Superior Court docket Decide Alexandra Gordon rejected Momeni’s request for a brand new trial. His attorneys have mentioned they plan to enchantment.
Members of Lee’s household addressed the courtroom Tuesday. They included his 18-year-old daughter, Scout Lee, who spoke on to Momeni.
“You didn’t simply finish his life; you ended a complete future constructed round a person,” she advised Momeni, in response to media studies.
Momeni, sporting an orange jail jumpsuit, maintained that he acted in self-defense. He advised Lee’s household that he understood their loss.
“Sadly, now we have fully completely different understandings of what transpired,” Momeni mentioned.
Police mentioned Lee, a famend tech mogul, and Momeni knew one another and had gotten into an argument over Momeni’s sister.
Prosecutors mentioned Momeni deliberate the assault on Lee, driving him to an remoted spot beneath the Bay Bridge and stabbing him 3 times, together with as soon as to the center, with a knife he took from his sister’s kitchen. They mentioned Momeni was offended with Lee for introducing his youthful sister to a drug supplier she says gave her GHB and different medication after which sexually assaulted her.
Physique digital camera video confirmed Lee strolling alongside San Francisco’s Primary Avenue within the early morning hours earlier than ultimately collapsing close to a residential constructing.
Lee later died from his accidents, however not earlier than calling 911. That telephone name was introduced throughout the trial.
Momeni testified on the stand that Lee was the one who attacked him with a knife, offended after the tech marketing consultant chided him about spending extra time together with his household as an alternative of looking for a strip membership that evening. Momeni, who research martial arts, mentioned he didn’t understand he had fatally wounded Lee or that Lee was even damage.
Lee had created cell cost service Money App and was the chief product officer of the cryptocurrency MobileCoin when he died. He had not too long ago moved to Miami from the San Francisco Bay Space, the place his ex-wife, Krista Lee, lives with their two kids, and had returned to California for a go to.
Jurors in the long run rejected a cost of homicide within the first diploma, which required prosecutors to show that Momeni acted intentionally, willfully and with premeditation. Homicide within the second diploma doesn’t require premeditation.
Momeni was not sentenced till Tuesday because of the appeals.
