The initial gambit by Nima Momeni's defense attorneys to move his trial from San Francisco did not pay off as the judge in the case ruled on the request for a change of venue on Friday.

Momeni's trial could finally begin sometime this year with the April 2023 murder of tech entrepreneur and CashApp founder Bob Lee. As Mission Local reports, his tentative trial date was set for May 20 on Friday – although the defense may seek further delays.

But for the change of venue motion, the judge didn't believe an impartial, home-grown jury could be assembled in San Francisco.

“Yes, he is the CashApp founder, but the court believes that killing him is the reason individuals are becoming more aware of him,” Judge Eric Fleming said, according to Mission Local.

The defense team surveyed 100 SF residents and found that while 86 percent had heard of the murder case, only 41 people agreed that Lee was a “Silicon Valley icon.” And less than a third said they had already formed an opinion about Nema Momeni based on news articles about the case.

Fleming said he thought about whether gruesome or gory details of the murder had been shared widely with the public and concluded that this case didn't really fit that description, Mission Local reports. And he added that potential jurors were equally likely to have “negative opinions and potential biases” toward the defendant, in this case being against the victim.

Bradford Cohen, who is part of the defense team recruited from Florida to defend Momeni after he apparently fired local defense attorney Paula Caney, admitted to Mission Local outside the courtroom that “we always file these motions,” referring to refers to the application for a change of jurisdiction.

While this was a defeat for the defense, they had a victory last week when Judge Fleming ruled in their favor in a request for seven years of phone records from Bob Lee's cell phones.

“The prosecution will seize both of Bob Lee’s phones for seven years because that’s when Bob Lee met Khazar Momeni – and the government maintains that relationship was legitimate,” attorney Saam Zangeneh told Mission Local.

Khazar Momeni, Nima Momeni's sister, is at the center of this case and Nema's possible motive for stabbing Lee. Lee had been in a romantic relationship of sorts with married Khazar Momeni for seven years and – having moved to Miami – was in town on business when the murder occurred.

According to evidence publicly released in previous court documents, on April 3, 2023, Lee and Khazar Momeni had spent the day together and attended a party at an individual's apartment at 1550 Mission Street. This person has been identified multiple times as Lee's friend or drug dealer, and it has been alleged that something inappropriate happened to Khazar Momeni while she was there, for which Nima Momeni may have blamed Lee.

Lee and Nima Momeni were seen on surveillance footage leaving Khazar's Millenium Tower apartment in the early hours of April 4, about 20 minutes before the stabbing occurred a few blocks away. The kitchen knife believed to be the murder weapon may have come from a set in Khazar Momeni's kitchen.

Previously: Lawyers for Bob Lee murder suspect Nima Momeni want to move the trial from San Francisco

Pictured above: Nima Momeni arrives in court at the Hall of Justice on May 18, 2023 in San Francisco, California. 38-year-old technology entrepreneur Nima Momeni was charged in a San Francisco courtroom today in connection with the stabbing murder of Cash App founder Bob Lee. Momeni pleaded not guilty to a murder charge. (Photo by Paul Kuroda-Pool/Getty Images)

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Supporters held a joint watch party in downtown Oakland Tuesday night for U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee and Lateefah Siman, who is running to replace Lee.

While Lee's campaign aides attended the party, Lee skipped them. Instead, she said she would fly back to Washington DC to work.

She was disappointed with the outcome of the race and finished in fourth place. Late Tuesday night, CBS News predicted that Lee will not advance to the November general election.

Before the polls closed, Lee joined her volunteers at her downtown campaign office to urge voters to vote for her. Before leaving the campaign office on Tuesday evening, she spoke about the challenges posed by the Senate race.

“You could see the inequality in money, I mean, come on. Establishment money is not going to a black progressive woman. But we have people, we have donors, we have recurring donors, we have people who have never donated to campaigns before,” said Rep. Lee.

She only answered two questions from the press. Reporters asked her about her future plans, to which she gave no answer.

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And Lin

Da Lin is an award-winning journalist at KPIX 5 News. He joined KPIX 5 in 2012 but has covered Bay Area news since 2007. Da grew up in Oakland and covered the news for five years at three other television stations in Texas before returning to the Bay Area. Southern and Central California. He also reported for KRON 4 for five years.

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• By James Clayton
• Technology reporter, San Francisco

7 April 2023

Image source, Getty Images

Image caption,

The Tenderloin district has a reputation for high drug use and crime

Bob Lee was part of the tech establishment. The former chief technical officer of Square and founder of the $40bn payment app Cash App.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, he was killed in a stabbing, in a supposedly “safe” part of San Francisco.

His death has sent a chill through the tech community.

Twitter’s former CEO, Jack Dorsey, called the killing heart-breaking.

His friend and fellow tech founder Joshua Goldbard tweeted: “Bob was like a brother to me… Bob’s energy was infectious. He made friends everywhere he went.”

Elon Musk also added his thoughts on the killing.

“Very sorry to hear that. Many people I know have been severely assaulted. Violent crime in SF is horrific.”

San Francisco has struggled with homelessness and drug deaths in recent years. In a city reliant on the tech sector, the pandemic hit its downtown more than any other in the US – it simply hasn’t been able to bounce back.

I often hear downtown being described as “dead” or “quiet”. And in certain neighbourhoods, the city can feel unsafe, something the city’s mayor has previously acknowledged.

Areas around the Tenderloin (in the heart of the city) and Soma, which stands for “South of Market” can feel dystopian, particularly at night.

Image source, Twitter/Bob Lee

Image caption,

Tributes poured in for Bob Lee

Many television crews take armed guards with them when gathering footage in the city.

And with the streets so quiet, anti-social behaviour can sometimes feel more threatening and obvious.

So far there have been 12 murders in the city. In the first three months of last year there were 10. The number of assaults is also similar.

And when you compare that to other cities, San Francisco compares relatively well. This is not Gotham City.

But the view that Elon Musk articulates, that violent crime is up, is very common.

San Francisco is a relatively small city. Its population is around 800,000. And unlike cities like Chicago, many of the “problem” neighbourhoods are interwoven throughout the central business district.

Twitter global headquarters, for example, is on Market Street, a few blocks away from the Tenderloin. Mobile payment company Block is also close by. San Francisco’s problems are out in the open – right in the heart of the city.

For its politicians, desperate to try and entice tech business back to the city, high profile killings like Mr Lee’s are devastating.

If influential tech companies decide to stay away, and people begin to leave, it could create what’s been referred to as a “doom loop”.

The city’s influential paper, The San Francisco Chronicle, has recently warned that the city could be in a negative spiral – and outlined how the city could “die”.

As companies leave, tax revenue falls. People use mass transit less until it becomes bankrupt – making it more difficult for low and middle-income workers to get to work. Labour costs rise still further, and the city has fewer funds to tackle things like crime and disorderly behaviour.

The city’s mayor responded, saying: “It’s easy to throw out dire predictions about the death of downtown. But that’s not our reality and it’s not going to happen.”

San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

It has Silicon Valley on its doorstep. It is also excellently located to take advantage of the new boom in tech – AI.

OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, is based in San Francisco, along with a myriad other AI tech start-ups.

The city boasts incredible talent. In many ways it has an awful lot going for it. Yet still, many people are leaving. Last year the American Housing Survey found that about 18% of San Francisco residents plan on moving in 2023. Nearly half of them said they were intending to move to a different city.

And unless San Francisco can stem that tide, it’s in trouble.

The post Bob Lee killing highlights San Francisco crime fears appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

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exclusive

By Marjorie Hernandez

April 7, 2023 | 6:00pm

The San Francisco neighborhood where Cash App founder Bob Lee was stabbed to death had at least 12 murders so far this year and is “severely lacking” in police presence, a top police union official told The Post.

Lee’s brutal attack was just one of four stabbing incidents which occurred earlier this week in the Democrat-run city’s Southern and Tenderloin Districts, which have been plagued with rising crime rates, said Lt. Tracy McCray, vice president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association.

“We are short staffed so just our presence in patrolling is severely lacking right now. To see a certain uptick in crime is to be expected but I think we are now at a precipice where we could go one way or the other,” McCray said.

Lee, 43, was stabbed multiple times in the chest early Tuesday morning at about 2:35 a.m. as he walked in the city’s posh Rincon Hill neighborhood, which is in the Southern District and near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

Bob Lee, the 43-year-old father and founder of Cash App was stabbed several times, according to San Francisco Police officials. Bob Lee/Facebook

Chilling 911 audio revealed Lee screamed for help as he bled out on the street in front of a residential building called the Portside at the 300 block of Main Street.

Video footage showed the tech mogul holding his cell phone and desperately flagging down passing cars before collapsing.

No arrests have been made and San Francisco Police have yet to release a description of possible suspects.

“We have not released any video surveillance or photos so we can’t confirm or comment on any images or videos at this point,” said Allison Maxie, spokeswoman for SFPD, told The Post on Friday.

According to police statistics, robbery in the Southern District, which includes Rincon Hill, has increased by about 14 percent compared to last year. From January to April 2, there have been 12 homicides in the area.

A pedestrian walks across the street from the building where Bob Lee was fatally stabbed on April 6, 2023.AP

Flowers sit at a tree in front of the building where a technology executive Bob Lee was fatally stabbed. AP

Violent crimes also saw an uptick of 7.5% over the past three years throughout San Francisco, while property crime has exploded to 20.7% over the past three years, according to crime stats.

While overall violent crime fell 13.6% from 2019 to 2022, homicides rose 36.6%, from 41 to 56 in the city of 815,000.

San Francisco’s rising crime rates helped fuel last year’s recall efforts against progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who was ousted over his soft-on-crime policies.

Locals said the Rincon area where Lee was killed boasts multimillion dollar high rise apartments where tech industry moguls, celebrities and members of the Golden State Warriors basketball team have been known to live. 

Although the neighborhood is usually quiet, they fear residents and visitors could easily become victims.

“You see people around here with really nice cars and dress really well, and they could be a target,” a local told The Post. “When I heard what happened to him [Lee], the first thing that came to my head was, ‘What would he be doing here around that time?’ You do see people from all walks of life around here but what was a super wealthy person like him doing wandering the streets like that? It doesn’t make sense.”

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Whole Foods opened a store in San Francisco, US, in March 2022, but months later reduced its hours after “grand theft” — the closure came just weeks after Cash App founder and tech superstar Bob Lee was killed in the city

Whole Foods has closed its store after admitting employees were unsafe in the city (whole food market)

Whole Foods has closed its San Francisco store because the company “cannot ensure the safety of employees” days after tech mogul Bob Lee was stabbed to death.

The popular supermarket chain had opened a flagship store in March 2022, but just months later the store reduced its hours in San Francisco, California, amid rising drug problems and “frequent thefts”.

The store experienced hostile customers and store managers were forced to restrict use of the toilets to customers after used syringes and tubes were found on the floor in November.

Local shopper Allyn Mejia said she wasn’t surprised the company had raised concerns about employees after security guards burst into the store to deal with unruly customers.

She told Newsweek, “I saw security rush into the store very quickly before anything happened.”

Tech mogul Bob Lee was attacked in San Francisco

San Francisco District Manager Matt Dorsey said he was “incredibly disappointed but sadly not surprised” by the closure of Whole Foods.

“Our neighborhood has been waiting for this supermarket for a long time, but we’re also aware of the problems they’ve had with retail drug thefts, adjacent drug markets and the many security issues that come with it,” he said.

A Whole Foods Market spokesman told the San Francisco Standard that the closure may be temporary.

A homeless man is seen in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco(Agency Anadolu via Getty Images)

It said: “We are only closing our Trinity location for the time being. When we feel we can ensure the safety of our team members in store, we will consider reopening our Trinity location.”

The decision to close the store came after Cash App founder Bob Lee died in San Francisco on April 4 after being stabbed twice in the chest.

His death sparked an outcry from tech leaders like Elon Musk and revealed fears of a deepening drug and crime crisis in San Francisco, a well-known tech hub.

Homeless people are seen in San Francisco(Agency Anadolu via Getty Images)

According to the victim’s friend, the tech boss himself had moved out of the California city because he feared things were “getting worse.”

And Mr Musk said he was “very sorry” to hear about Mr Lee’s death, before criticizing what he saw as a crime out of control.

He tweeted: “A lot of people I know have been badly attacked. Violent crimes in SF are horrific, and even when attackers are caught, they are often released immediately.”

The city has a high crime and drug rate (Agency Anadolu via Getty Images)

The billionaire called San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jennings and asked, “Is the city taking stricter measures to incarcerate repeat offenders?”

Matt Ocko, a technology entrepreneur and venture capitalist from Palo Alto, California, tweeted that the leaders of “lawless” San Francisco had “literally blood on their hands” from Mr Lee following the recent raid on the city.

A huge homeless camp in California(Agency Anadolu via Getty Images)

The 43-year-old was visiting San Francisco after returning from Miami for a “quick visit” after planning to stay an extra day, according to friends.

CCTV footage showed Mr Lee walking down an empty San Francisco street in the early hours of the morning, lifting his shirt to show a driver his wounds before driving away.

In disturbing footage from a local newspaper, he was seen begging a driver: “Help. Someone stabbed me.”

Flowers and cards were left near the Portside apartment building in San Francisco, California where Bob Lee was tragically stabbed(Agency Anadolu via Getty Images)

According to reports, Mr Lee can be seen on CCTV running towards the Bay Bridge before falling to the ground in front of a residential building around 2.30am.

Police found the engineering chief unconscious before taking him to the hospital, where he tragically died from his injuries.

The post Complete Meals QUITS San Francisco over ’employees security’ after Bob Lee homicide shines highlight appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Bob Lee. (mobile coin)

By Cheri Mossburg, Josh Campbell and Brad Parks | CNN

The stabbed death of CashApp founder Bob Lee has prompted comments that perpetuate the notion that San Francisco is dangerous and crime-ridden, yet data shows that violent crime — particularly homicides — is well below that of many other similar-sized cities.

George Tita, a professor of criminal justice at the University of California, Irvine, believes perception has more to do with the profile of those involved in specific crimes than actual data.

“If a very well-known technician is murdered, it’s just going to draw more attention than if it’s an impoverished person in a colored neighborhood,” Tita said. “It’s just a low-hanging fruit. Nobody wants to look at actual statistics. Most of the states and counties with the highest crime statistics are in the red states versus the blue states.”

Lee died after a knife attack in the Rincon Hill neighborhood. Police officers responded to reports of a stabbing early Tuesday morning, according to a statement from the San Francisco Police Department. They found “a 43-year-old adult male victim who appeared to be suffering from stab wounds.”

“Officials rendered assistance and called paramedics to the scene,” the police statement said. “The victim was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Despite the best efforts of first responders and medical staff, the victim succumbed to his injuries.”

According to police, San Francisco recorded 56 homicides in both 2022 and 2021, an increase of over 36% from 2019 when there were 41 homicides. Despite the increase, San Francisco’s homicide toll is well below other cities of a similar size, data from the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association shows.

For example, Indianapolis had 271 homicides in 2021 and 226 in 2022. Jacksonville, Florida had 129 homicides in 2021 and 154 in 2022, while Columbus, Ohio had 204 in 2021 murders and 140 murders in 2022.

According to the California Department of Justice, violent crimes in San Francisco, including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, peaked in 2013 at 7,164 violent crimes. But they have declined significantly in recent years. According to data from the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association, San Francisco now ranks in the lower midfield compared to several cities with similar populations.

However, property crime in San Francisco tells a different story, as seen in several attention-grabbing videos. Though still well below 2017 levels, the city saw a 23% increase in property crime between 2020 and 2022, with an increase in burglaries and theft leading the way, according to data from the San Francisco PD.

“People who believe that housing is bad and that crime is always on the rise believe it because of their worldview and dogma and not because of facts,” Tita said. “All we can do is provide unbiased, carefully compiled data. At the end of the day, there are some people who don’t care about the facts.”

San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said the number of homicides had been falling before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic but had risen in the months that followed, in line with a nationwide trend, CNN affiliate KPIX reported.

“If you look at the violent crime rate in San Francisco compared to other cities per 100,000 (in population), we’re at the bottom end of the big cities,” Scott told KPIX. “It’s never talked about.

“We have our problems with our city,” he continued. “There are some things we really need to keep working on. We have these pictures that are going viral and being posted all over the world and that are about drug use and homelessness. These are real problems in our city and we are tackling them. But violent crime? We are not that city.”

The CNN Wire
& © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery company. All rights reserved.

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• Bob Lee, the inventor of the Cash App, was fatally stabbed in San Francisco earlier this week.
• His friend Jake Shields told NewsNation that Lee recently moved to Miami.
• Lee moved out of San Francisco because he felt it was unsafe, Shields added.

Bob Lee, the inventor of the Cash App, moved out of San Francisco because he believed the city was “decaying” just before he was fatally stabbed, a friend told NewsNation on Wednesday.

Jake Shields, a former mixed martial artist, told the outlet that he used to live in the area where Lee was attacked but eventually moved because he no longer felt safe there.

“[Lee] “I was commenting on San Francisco’s deterioration, which is actually why he just moved to Miami,” Shields told the outlet.

“It wasn’t the only reason, but it was a reason,” Shields told Insider. “I can’t remember the exact words he used and I want to be careful when I put words in a dead man’s mouth, but he was extremely happy with it.” Miami felt a lot cleaner and safer.”

According to an NBC Bay Area report, Lee died after being stabbed early Tuesday morning while walking near Rincon Hill and the Bay Bridge.

Few details have emerged about the circumstances of the attack and police have not yet identified anyone or announced any arrests in connection with the incident.

The tech mogul sold his multimillion-dollar home in the San Francisco area in July last year, according to real estate records verified by the New York Post.

Insider has not been able to independently verify when Lee left town and whether or not he was in San Francisco on business.

Shields told NewsNation the attack was a “pointless act of violence in San Francisco,” adding that the city has had “problems” for some time.

“But anyone who’s been at this for a long time knows it’s only going to get worse,” Shields added. “People talk and say they will do things, but nobody does anything.”

Lee’s death reignited a long-running debate about crime in San Francisco.

Last year, San Francisco’s violent crime rate, which includes murders, rapes, assaults and robberies, was 647 per 100,000 people, according to the San Francisco Police Department. This is an increase from 550 in 2020 and 603 in 2021, but lower than the pre-pandemic figure of 696 in 2019.

Several other friends and colleagues of Lee have criticized crime in the city and urged San Francisco Mayor London Breed to take more action.

Twitter owner Elon Musk also weighed in on the debate, tweeting on Wednesday: “Many people I know have been severely attacked. Violent crimes in SF are horrendous and even when attackers are caught, they are often released immediately.” He did not cite any sources to support the claim.

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Tech entrepreneur and CashApp founder Bob Lee. (From Twitter via CNN)

By Catherine Thorbecke | CNN

Bob Lee, Square’s former chief technology officer who helped launch the Cash App, has died in San Francisco after an apparent knife attack.

Lee’s death was confirmed by Josh Goldbard, the CEO of his current employer, MobileCoin. Lee joined MobileCoin, a cryptocurrency and digital payments startup, in 2021 as Chief Product Officer.

“Our dear friend and colleague Bob Lee passed away yesterday at the age of 43, leaving behind a loving family and a band of close friends and associates,” Goldbard said in a statement to CNN on Wednesday morning. “Bob was a dynamo, a force of nature. Bob was the real article. He was created for the world that is being born, he was a child of dreams and whatever he imagined, no matter how crazy, he accomplished.”

Goldbard continued, “We will miss you, Bob. We love you.”

Rick Lee, Bob’s father, also confirmed the news in a statement on Facebook, writing, “I just lost my best friend.” The father said his son “lost his life on the street in San Francisco early Tuesday.”

“Bob would give you the shirt off his back,” the father wrote. “He never looked down on anyone and had a strong philosophy of non-judgment.”

Rick Lee added that his son “will be missed by everyone who knew him” and thanked those who reached out and offered support.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed also issued a statement Wednesday, calling Lee’s death “a terrible tragedy.” Breed said police are still investigating Lee’s death and will provide more details soon.

According to an earlier statement from the San Francisco Police Department, officials were responding to reports of a stabbing early Tuesday morning in the Rincon neighborhood of San Francisco, where they found “a 43-year-old adult male victim who appeared to be suffering from stab wounds.” ”

“Officials provided assistance and called paramedics to the scene of the accident. The victim was transported to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries. Despite the efforts of first responders and medical personnel, the victim succumbed to his injuries,” the police statement said.

Several local news organizations quoted unnamed police sources as saying Lee was the victim of the stabbing. Police said no arrests had been made and investigations were ongoing.

San Francisco has grappled with an apparent spike in crime while still trying to recover from the pandemic. Preliminary police data reports 12 homicides in San Francisco this year, up 20% from the same period last year. Overall, there were 56 homicides in San Francisco in 2022, which is exactly the same number of homicides the city recorded in 2021.

While Goldbard did not specify the circumstances of Lee’s death in his statement, he wrote in a separate Twitter thread in response to the news, “As a lifelong Bay Area resident, I have more questions than answers tonight.”

“I don’t know how to fix this, but I know something isn’t working in our gray city. Bob left this world too soon,” Goldbard wrote on Twitter.

outbreak of grief

Many others in the tech world and beyond reacted to the news of Lee’s death with outbursts of shock and sadness.

“It’s so hard to believe he’s gone,” Figma CEO Dylan Field wrote in a tweet, recalling first meeting Lee in 2006.

Launchpad Capital tech investor Ryan Gilbert tweeted that Lee was “one of a kind,” adding, “May his memory be a blessing.”

And mixed martial artist Jake Shields remembered Lee as a “loyal friend” in a tweet, writing, “RIP bro.”

Shields’ tweet caught the attention of new Twitter owner Elon Musk, who included himself by saying, “Violent crimes in SF are horrendous and even when attackers are caught, they are often released immediately.” Musk tagged the District Attorney of in his tweet San Francisco, Brooke Jenkins.

Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Square (now called Block), responded to the news with a post on decentralized social media app Nostr early Wednesday. “Heartbreaking,” Dorsey wrote. “Bob was instrumental in both Square and Cash App.”

Lee was Square’s first chief technology officer. Before joining Square, Lee was at Google, where he led the team that brought Android to market.

The CNN Wire
& © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery company. All rights reserved.

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Mission Local is informed that San Francisco police earlier today made an arrest in connection with the April 4 killing of tech executive Bob Lee after an operation was conducted outside of city limits. The alleged killer also works in engineering and is a man Lee allegedly knew.

We are told that police were dispatched to Emeryville today with a warrant to arrest a man named Nima Momeni. The name and address in Emeryville. SFPD officials traveled to correspond with this man, the owner of a company called Expand IT.

Multiple police sources have not described the pre-dawn stabbing last week that killed 43-year-old Lee in a deserted section of downtown San Francisco as neither an attempted robbery nor a random attack.

Rather, Lee and Momeni were portrayed by police as familiar with each other. In the early hours of April 4, they were allegedly driving together through downtown San Francisco in a car registered to the suspect.

Allegedly, some sort of confrontation began while both men were in the vehicle and possibly continued after Lee exited the car. Police allege Momeni stabbed Lee multiple times with a knife, which was recovered not far from where officers originally responded on the 300 block of Main Street.

This scenario would partially explain why at 2:30 a.m. Lee was walking through a portion of Main Street where there is little to no foot traffic. That was one of several incongruous circumstances surrounding Lee’s violent death, which law enforcement officials said from the start felt it was anything but a simple or random crime.

Still, some of Lee’s tech industry peers and a chorus of other influential voices portrayed this murder as part of a city engulfed in violent crime and descending into further chaos. While Lee is one of a dozen murder victims in San Francisco this year, his murder is the only one that has received national — or, in most cases, only superficial local coverage.

The other San Francisco murder victims of 2023 are Gavin Boston, 40; Irving Sanchez Morales, 28; Carlos Romero Flores, 29; Maxwell Maltzman, 18; Demario Lockett, 44; Maxwell Mason, 29; Humberto Avila, 46; Gregory McFarland Jr., 36; Kareem Sims, 43; Debra Lynn Hord, 57; and Jermaine Reeves, 52.

In San Francisco there is much visible public misery, troubling street behavior and blatant drug use. Property crime rates have long been high and police detection rates for property crimes have long been minimal. However, the city’s violent crime rate is at near historic lows and lower than most medium-to-large cities.

Homicides per 100,000 population

In recent years,

The number of murders increased in San

Francisco – but they stay

low compared to

historical trends

Homicides per 100,000 population

In recent years,

The number of murders increased in San

Francisco – but they stay

low compared to historical trends

Diagram by Will Jarrett. Data from the California Department of Justice and the Census Bureau.

Today’s arrest appears to disprove the notion that San Francisco’s streets caused Lee’s violent death. If the police have their man, what was involved was neither a robbery nor a gratuitous assault by a random assailant, but an alleged argument between men who knew each other, which the suspect allegedly escalated into a deadly conflict.

However, Lee’s death was summed up in the media and on social media as a highlight of recent San Francisco misfortunes and crimes: large groups of young people feuding in Stonestown; the abrupt closure of mid-tier Whole Foods, leaving San Franciscans with just eight other Whole Foods within city limits; the severe caning of former fire commissioner Don Carmignani in the Marina District, allegedly by belligerent homeless people – all of which creates a sense of a city dying.

However, this type of reporting does not capture the actual life experience of the vast majority of San Franciscans. Also, potentially extenuating details of each event are omitted. Carmignani, for example, was brutally hit in the head with a metal bar and hospitalized. But the lawyer for his alleged attacker claims the former fire commissioner initially pepper-sprayed the homeless man accused of hitting him – which would certainly falsify this incident.

Notably, police sources report that prior to this incident, a number of homeless people in the Marina District had been pepper sprayed.

The Lee arrest is a groundbreaking story. We will update or track this item asap.

To update:

Records from San Francisco show that Nima Momeni was taken to jail at 9:19 a.m

The post Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee — tech exec’s alleged killer additionally labored in tech appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

San Francisco Police Commissioner William Scott and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins (R) at a news conference about the murder of Cash App founder Bob Lee.

The man accused of fatally assaulting Silicon Valley CEO Bob Lee will plead not guilty to the murder, his attorney said.

The indictment of suspect Nima Momeni in San Francisco state court was delayed Tuesday, but his attorney, Paula Canny, told reporters at the courthouse that camera footage used by prosecutors as evidence does not support a first-degree murder charge.

“I don’t think you can see anything in the videos,” she said.

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has asked the court not to grant bail and release Momeni, arguing the April 4 murder was “planned and intentional.”

Lee, 43, who was chief product officer at cryptocurrency startup MobileCoin and created the Cash App, was revered in the tech world for his programming talents. Prosecutors say he was stabbed to death with a kitchen knife on a downtown San Francisco street after meeting with friends, including Momeni’s sister.

Momeni appeared in court for the second time on Tuesday and his indictment was again postponed to May 2. Canny said she’s waiting for an autopsy report from the city coroner’s office. Jenkins said at a news conference that the report could take weeks to complete.

Canny told Bloombeg News she would resist the district attorney’s efforts to keep her client, a 38-year-old IT consultant, jailed pending his trial.

In a court filing in support of Momeni’s detention, prosecutors cited surveillance footage showing the men in Momeni’s car pulling out of his sister’s apartment building together and driving into a “dark and remote area.”

A color video segment cited in the filing then shows two men standing on a sidewalk for about five minutes – with the camera too far away to make out their faces – before one suddenly moves toward the other. The men then separate, one walking away injured and the other moving along a fence line where the knife was later recovered, according to the filing, which describes Momeni’s BMW speeding away from the scene.

Jenkins told reporters Tuesday that Canny was given DNA evidence from the bloodied knife. She declined to elaborate.

The district attorney said she believes Canny saw enough evidence for Momeni to file a plea deal. Jenkins expressed disappointment that the indictment was delayed, especially after many of Lee’s family members turned up for Tuesday’s hearing.

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