Bob Lee Part 2: The Brother Did It

Summary

Foundering: Bob Lee Part 2 – The Brother Did It

Podcast: Foundering (Bloomberg)
Airdate: April 16, 2026
Episode Theme:
This episode investigates the shocking aftermath of Cash App founder Bob Lee’s murder, focusing on Nima Momeni—the man arrested for the crime—his complex, tragic family history, and the ripple effects of the killing within both San Francisco’s tech community and Momeni’s own Iranian immigrant family. The narrative also examines how the public and media rushed to a false conclusion about Lee’s murder, shedding new light on the real story behind the high-profile case.

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Main Theme

The episode reveals the deeply personal motivations and turbulent life events that shaped Nima Momeni, weaving his background and relationship with his sister into the events that led to Bob Lee's death. It also critically explores how crime narratives in San Francisco are formed, challenged, and often manipulated by those with larger political and social agendas.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Arrest of Nima Momeni & Immediate Aftermath

• The Arrest

  • Early morning SWAT raid in Emeryville; Momeni surrenders quickly ([03:00–03:08]).
  • Surprise and shock among building residents, including neighbor Sam Singer (PR executive) who finds out live via a radio journalist ([06:14]).
  • "He's not just in my building. He's my next door neighbor." – Sam Singer ([06:24]).

• Initial Media & Community Reactions

  • Rapid spread of the news in both local press and tech circles; confusion over Momeni’s background, spurred by his proximity to Lee.
  • PR and media figures (Gary Tan of Y Combinator) react with disbelief at proximity to the incident ([06:53]).

2. Nima Momeni’s Background: Immigration, Trauma, and Early Life

• Family Escape from Iran

  • Nima, his mother and sister fled an abusive, wealthy household in Tehran; settled in Albany, CA with little means ([09:19–09:57]).
  • Both siblings experienced hardship and closeness as newcomers, working to support their mother ([10:50]; [11:32]).

• Early Warning Signs: Violence and Drug Use

  • Family friend Alex Proshaigin describes Nima as hardworking but impatient ([11:47]).
  • High school peer Thomas recalls Momeni selling weed, being quiet and carrying a knife for self-defense ([12:32]; [13:16]).
    • “If you try to rob Nima, he might stab you. I mean, that's basically what we deducted from that situation.” – Thomas ([14:59]).

3. Crime Details: Prosecutors’ Theory and Friend Testimonies

• Prosecutors’ Motive

  • Video and evidence detail Nima driving Bob Lee to a secluded spot and stabbing him with a kitchen knife ([15:30–16:04]).
  • Motive said to center on protection of his sister, Kazar, whom he is described as fiercely loyal and protective of ([21:00]).

• Contrasting Portrayals of Nima

  • Friends describe a fascination with weapons (“mall ninja" knives), but not a propensity for violence ([16:46–17:12]).
  • Heavy drug use, especially cocaine, is consistently reported to have impacted his work and behavior ([18:11–18:26]).

• Position in the Tech World

  • Mischaracterized as a "tech executive" on Bob Lee’s level; in reality, ran a small, often one-man IT support company ([18:48]).

4. The Sibling Relationship: Nima & Kazar

• Codependency and Trauma

  • Intense sibling bond, described as "codependent," rooted in shared survival and trauma ([23:53]).
  • Text messages show both deep affection and frequent conflict, particularly over drug use and Kazar’s personal life ([24:15]; [25:25]).

• Text Revelations

  • Kazar admits to extramarital affairs and argues with Nima over cocaine ([25:38]; [26:13]).
  • A dramatic series of texts reveals Nima’s obsession with defending his sister, even plotting to confront their allegedly abusive father in Turkey ([26:50]).

5. Emerging Signs of Violence and Troubled Relationships

• Incidents of Aggression
  • Police and anonymous online reports link Nima to violent episodes, including a 2022 domestic dispute and warnings from sex workers about his aggression and erratic, drug-influenced behavior ([31:04]).
    • “He had a shotgun stowed in a guitar case. He was interested in martial arts, you know, mall ninja stuff.” – Sean Wen ([31:04]).

6. Night of the Murder: Timeline and Evidence

• What Happened

  • Security footage and texts confirm Nima drove Lee from Kazar’s apartment, stabbed him, and returned home ([33:27–34:55]).
  • Kazar attempts to reach Lee hours later, seemingly unaware he is dead ([34:55]).

• Texts Between Siblings After the Murder

  • Reveal guilt, blame, and confusion about what happened; Kazar insists Bob never harmed her ([38:34]).
    • “Bob never touched me. No one did. Your dad did. Who? You kissed his ass and begged to get his approval.” – Kazar ([39:36]).

7. Personal Fallout and Family Tragedy

• Effects on the Momeni Family

  • Heartbreak and shock among family and friends, especially for Nima’s mother ([42:02]).

• Tragic Irony

  • Despite fleeing abuse in Iran, Nima seemed to reenact elements of that trauma in the U.S. ([42:39]).
    • “He was able to escape his father physically, but not the cycle of abuse.” – Sean Wen ([42:39]).

8. San Francisco as Character: Media, Assumptions, and Tech Backlash

• False Narratives in the Media
  • Early tech community reactions focused on the idea of random street violence, a narrative later proven misguided ([45:02]).
  • David Friedberg admits: “I didn't even consider the possibility that this guy was murdered by someone that he knew … I am so enthralled right now by this narrative that SF is so bad and it must be another data point that validates my point of view.” ([45:36])
  • David Sacks: “We got all these reporters … trying to dunk on us because we basically talked about the Bob Lee case in that way … if we were to bet, … it looks like a lot like the Brianna Kupfer case.” ([46:27])
  • The actual story turns out to be a complex intersection of trauma, family loyalty, drugs, and the unique pressures of San Francisco ([45:50]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We don't normally wind up working next to killers.” — Sam Singer, PR executive and neighbor ([06:36])
• “I was in disbelief. Nima was just as close as an adopted son to my wife.” — Alex Proshaigin, family friend ([08:59])
• “If you try to rob Nima, he might stab you. I mean, that's basically what we deducted from that situation.” — Thomas, high school acquaintance ([14:59])
• “If Nima did this… it probably has something to do with Kazar.” — David, Nima’s friend ([20:54])
• “I am so enthralled right now by this narrative that SF is so bad and it must be another data point that validates my point of view on SF.” — David Friedberg, tech podcaster ([45:36])
• “He was able to escape his father physically, but not the cycle of abuse.” — Sean Wen ([42:39])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Nima's Arrest & Neighbor’s Shock: [01:29]–[03:23]
• Momeni Family History and Immigration: [09:19]–[11:32]
• Early Signs – Knife Incident in High School: [13:35]–[14:35]
• Prosecutors' Theory of the Murder: [15:30]–[16:04]
• Sibling Bond and Codependency: [21:00]–[26:50]
• Text Message Insights and Motive: [24:15]–[27:16]
• Reports of Violence and Aggressive Behavior: [31:04]–[31:58]
• Night of the Murder Detailed: [33:27]–[34:55]
• Post-murder Family Reactions: [42:03]–[42:39]
• San Francisco Crime Narrative Critique: [45:02]–[46:59]

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Tone & Style

• Investigative, compassionate, critical
  Sean Wen’s narration is methodical but empathetic, balancing the personal tragedies of the families involved with a probing look at societal and media implications.

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Summary Flow

For listeners or readers who have not heard the episode, this deep-dive reveals that the killing of Bob Lee was not the random act of urban violence the tech world first believed. Instead, it emerges as a tragic story of immigrant struggle, sibling codependency, personal and generational trauma, and the dangers of easy narratives in a city long defined by cycles of boom, bust, and reinvention. The final message is both a lament for the ruined lives and a warning about the power and risk of unchecked assumptions.

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Transcript

[IBM Executive]

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[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News

[Thomas (High School Acquaintance)]

previously on Foundry Tuesday San Francisco what's

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

the exact tech executive is dead. He was stabbed in San Francisco south of Market Street.

[Anonymous Police Source]

Yeah.

[Chris (Building Resident Witness)]

The latest reports have identified the victim

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Daybreak Host)]

as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App.

[David Sacks (Former PayPal Executive)]

I would bet dollars to dimes that the story is very similar to a case we in LA recently where a young woman was basically stabbed for no reason by a psychotic homeless person.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

I hope your mom gets stabbed. And let's see if you say we should wait and see.

[Chris (Building Resident Witness)]

Our homicide investigators developed information that identified the suspect as 38 year old Nima Momeni. We can confirm that Mr. Lee and Mr. Momeni knew each other.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

It was the morning of April 13, nine days since the killing of Bob Lee. It was early, about 4 or 5am, still dark out. That's when Chris, who asked us not to use his last name, heard a commotion outside his window.

[Chris (Building Resident Witness)]

I was awakened to a megaphone just outside demanding that someone come out of the building.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Chris lives in a big warehouse style loft in Emeryville. It's about a 15 minute drive across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco when there's no traffic and really the only time when there'd be no traffic on the Bay Bridge would be the middle of the night or very early in the morning.

[Chris (Building Resident Witness)]

Do you remember looking out the window and seeing a lot of police? A shocking number of cops for this area. At least a number of them had helmets on, they had large rifles and they were wearing body armor.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

He remembers seeing about 20 cops. There may have been more.

[Chris (Building Resident Witness)]

It was just like you see in the movies, come out with your hands up. I didn't know exactly what was going on. The best I could figure is that there had been a lot of catalytic converter thefts. Thought maybe the police had cornered somebody in the building, but I mean that was the best I could come up with. I never in my wildest dreams thought that they were after a resident of the building.

[Anonymous Police Source]

They served a search and arrest warrant at his apartment at a very early time of their choosing.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

This is my anonymous source in the police department because we're protecting his identity we're having a voice actor read what he told me.

[Anonymous Police Source]

So from what I know, once the SWAT team began calling out to him, he came out very fast and surrendered very immediately. Just dressed as if he was either sleeping in his clothing or was just expecting this to happen.

[Chris (Building Resident Witness)]

Because of my vantage point, I really couldn't see who it was.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Chris, again, the building resident.

[Chris (Building Resident Witness)]

I could sort of guess that it was a male based on his build, but I had no idea who it was.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Curious and not sure what to do, he turned where any of us might go looking for answers.

[Chris (Building Resident Witness)]

So I got on the Facebook group for the building and I started to piece together from what everyone was saying exactly what was happening. I learned that it was Nima that they did in fact arrest. And then both through that Facebook group and through the morning news, I learned that he was being accused of murdering Bob Lee. And that was, you know, that was pretty shocking to hear.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

The man arrested that day was named Nima Momeni. He was 38 years old. He ran a small IT company. And most surprisingly, police said he knew Bob Lee. Did the officers find anything interesting in his apartment?

[Anonymous Police Source]

We've heard that his apartment was kind of weird. Apparently he liked knives and had some kind of weird Mall Ninja knives.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

What's Mall Ninja?

[Anonymous Police Source]

Remember in malls they had all those weird shops that sold the curvy swords and the dragon things and all the crystals and all that stuff. That's kind of like Mall Ninja stuff, right? The knives that have points and blades all over them that clearly are for looks and would never be actually functional, things like that.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

By morning, the news had broken and the media were clamoring for any information they could get on the suspected killer of Bob Lee.

[Sam Singer (PR Executive)]

I get this phone call, this frantic phone call from Mike Doyle from KCBS radio. He's a reporter there.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Sam Singer occupies another unit in the same building. He wasn't home at the time, but a few hours after the police arrived, he got a call from a journalist.

[Sam Singer (PR Executive)]

And he says, sam, Sam, the murderer is in your building, and I'm driving north here. And I said, mike, what are we talking about here? And he goes, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. This is brand new. Bob Lee's murderer has been arrested and he's in your building.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Sometimes San Francisco feels like a very small town. Singer is friendly with many journalists. He's a well known public relations guy in the Bay Area. He specializes in crisis communications. He represented Chevron when their oil refinery in Richmond, California caught on reportedly sending 15,000 people to the hospital. He represented the San Francisco Zoo when the tiger jumped out of its enclosure and killed a teenager. And now, by chance, he had a role to play in San Francisco's next big story.

[Sam Singer (PR Executive)]

And I said, okay. I said, just out of interest, what's his unit number? And he goes, 201. I said, Mike, he's not just in my building. He's my next door neighbor. So Mike DeWalt and KCBS say, can we just come over right now? Can we want to interview you. Did you know him?

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

PR executive Sam Singer. Never expected he would be next door neighbors with the man accused in the criminal matter.

[Sam Singer (PR Executive)]

Total shock. I'm in the public relations business. We don't normally wind up working next to killers.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Remember what I said about San Francisco feeling like a very small town? Singer also happens to represent one of tech's most outspoken figures on crime in San Francisco.

[Sam Singer (PR Executive)]

One of our other clients is Gary Tan of Y Combinator, who immediately texted me when he saw that Nima was my next door neighbor and said, you live next to Bob Lee's accused killer.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

This is what it felt like in the days, weeks, and even months after Nima Momeni's arrest. Did you hear? Who is this guy? Do you know him? Where did he come from? Police said that Nima Momeni knew Bob Lee, but most of Bob's friends and family had never heard of him before. They were dumbfounded. I've been trying to answer these very basic questions. Who is Nima Momeni and why did he do it? What turned up was not the story I expected, but a larger human drama spanning continents, about drugs and partying, machismo, love and violence. I'm Sean Wen. This is foundering the killing of Bob Lee.

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[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Do you remember where you were? Like, what?

[Alex Proshaigin (Family Friend)]

My wife called me.

[Chris (Building Resident Witness)]

Oh.

[Alex Proshaigin (Family Friend)]

Have you checked? The news Said, no. Nima's in trouble. That's how I found out.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Alex Proshaigin lives in the Bay Area, where he's part of a relatively large Iranian immigrant community. His wife used to run a small grocery store where Nima worked As a

[Alex Proshaigin (Family Friend)]

teenager, I was in disbelief. Nima was just as close as an adopted son to my wife. The kids grew to like him.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Through his attorneys, Nima Momeni turned down my request for an interview and also declined to make a statement. Like Alex, Nima's family immigrated to the US From Iran.

[Alex Proshaigin (Family Friend)]

He was a likable kid.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

To understand anything about Nima killing Bob, the violent act at the center of this story, it's important to understand the role of violence in his coming to America in the first place. According to court documents, Neema Mumeni, his mom, and his younger sister arrived in the US in 1999. Nima was about 15. His sister was a year younger. An anonymous source told me that in Iran, the Momenis were very rich. Their dad was and still is a dental surgeon in Tehran. He also has a business doing chemical imports and exports. I reached out to him via his professional Instagram page, but have not heard back. The momentis in Iran did not have a happy life. According to court records, Nima's mom, Manaz, said she suffered domestic violence and abuse from her husband. And Nima's sister, Kazar, has also alleged sexual abuse from her dad. So Nima, his mom and his sister left behind their comfortable life in Iran to come to the Bay Area. They settled in Albany, a city just outside Berkeley. For their first few months here, the three of them shared a single bedroom in the home of one of Manaz's childhood friends. Nima and Kazar enrolled in high school as poor kids with foreign accents. Although Nima was a year older, they were placed in the same grade level.

[Alex Proshaigin (Family Friend)]

As they were growing up. They had a very, very close relationship as they had no choice as a brother and sister. If Khazar ever asked him for help, I'm pretty sure he was there 150%. I'm very sure of it.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

All three banded together to make ends meet. They worked for Alex Prashagin's wife. Nima worked at her grocery store. Minaz worked at her catering business as well as a flower shop. Kazar would sometimes babysit for the couple's young children. After some time, they managed to move out of their friend's bedroom and into their own apartment.

[Alex Proshaigin (Family Friend)]

They were economically at disadvantage. Manaz worked very hard to keep this family afloat. She did not have a husband. She was not taking government assistance. She's a very proud woman.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Alex said that as far as he knew, Nima was a good kid. He worked hard. He was polite. But Alex could also sense an impatience in Nima.

[Alex Proshaigin (Family Friend)]

I remember When Nima was working for my wife, at one point he was complaining that he didn't have privacy because they lived in such a small residence. I think they had a one bedroom. Maybe the mother and a daughter had taken the bedroom and he had to live in the corner of the living room. And I told him, I said, you're not the only one. We all went through these hardships, so get used to it and learned only to make your life better.

[Thomas (High School Acquaintance)]

The only thing I really knew about him was that he sold weed and I would buy weed off of him.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

This is Thomas. He grew up in Albany and went to high school with Nima. He asked me not to use his last name because some of the things he described were illegal.

[Thomas (High School Acquaintance)]

The main things that stood out were his clothing style, which I remember he wore like those big JNCO jeans and, you know, and he. He always dressed in like darker black clothes.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

And how did you know he sold weed? Like, how did you learn that?

[Thomas (High School Acquaintance)]

Friends just told me. He was always kind of soft spoken, quiet kind of guy. Not like playful or joke around or anything. He was just more like, here's the money, here's the weed. Enjoy.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

How. How was it? Do you remember?

[Thomas (High School Acquaintance)]

Oh, the weed was good. Yeah, he had good weed. Yeah, definitely.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Thomas and Nima weren't exactly close, but he had a story for me that seems relevant to what would happen later. One afternoon In January of 2005, Thomas Friends came by.

[Thomas (High School Acquaintance)]

They were all like, juiced up, like, oh, we just tried to rob Nima. And then he pulled out a knife and cut us.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Thomas would be the first to admit that the details of this story are fuzzy, but he remembers the broad strokes. And I found a police report which confirms that there was a fight that involved weed and that Nima used a knife on the other two kids.

[Thomas (High School Acquaintance)]

So my recollection of that is that they went to meet Nima to buy weed off of him and they tried to just steal the weed. I think one of my friends might have punched him and then like, Nima pulled out a knife. And I. The details are a little fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure one of my friends, the one who I think actually hit him, got like sliced on his side right here. And it wasn't a deep cut, it was more of a surface wound. And I feel like my other friend turned to like, maybe get away and got sliced on, like, backside.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

That Nima would be carrying a knife didn't surprise Thomas.

[Thomas (High School Acquaintance)]

Most of us carried a pocket knife with us just. Cause you never know. For whatever reason, Andy to have it. I. I almost always had a pocket knife on me, but, you know, never pulled it out on anybody.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Did it change how you all saw Nima? Were they hurt by the cuts at all?

[Thomas (High School Acquaintance)]

No, I don't think they were hurt by the cuts. I. I think we just basically were like, oh, well, if you try to rob Nima, he might stab you. I mean, that's basically what we deducted from that situation.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Very blunt.

[Thomas (High School Acquaintance)]

Yeah. It was basically like, o, well, they can't buy weed off of him anymore. They can't go with me to go buy weed off of him anymore.

[Prosecutor]

Prosecutors say video footage shows Lee and Momini leaving the Millennium Tower during the early morning hours of April 4th and getting into Momini's car. Court documents say defendant not only drove victim to a secluded area, but also brought a kitchen knife with him.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

In the motion to detain Nima without bail, prosecutors alleged that he drove Bob to what they called a secluded area in the opposite direction of his hotel. There, Nima stabbed Bob three times with a kitchen knife. One of those stabs pierced Bob's heart.

[Prosecutor]

This was a planned and deliberate attack.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

They're saying he took a kitchen knife from his sister's apartment to his car with this, you know, with Bob, got in the car, went somewhere else, and then attacked him.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

David is one of Nima's closest adult friends. He also asked to withhold his last name. He said he couldn't reconcile the prosecutor's case with the Nima he knew, but not for the reasons you might think.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

He wouldn't have a kitchen knife in his car. He would have something like a bowie knife in his car, you know, for just in case.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

As a kid, Nima may have carried a knife for self defense, but as an adult, he developed a fondness for

[David (Nima's Friend)]

them more generally because, I mean, he likes that stuff. He likes, like, fantasy shaped blades with, like, you know, curves or maybe cutouts in it or some decorative handle, you know, elements. He enjoyed that stuff. He would, like, display them in his, you know, in his living space.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

David met Nima at work, and they became good friends. He painted a picture of Nima as someone who had an interest in weapons, including guns.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

He did get into shotgunning and other stuff with me.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

But what struck me talking to David was how much Nima sounded like a normal guy. He liked boats.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

He had this little sailboat with an outboard motor.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

He liked going out.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

Yeah, he definitely liked to go to strip clubs. I mean, it was his idea to go like, no, you guys, come with me. Come on, let's go.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

He liked Burning Man. One year, David was retrofitting a car for the festival. A hand me down Saturn made to look like a bearded dragon.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

And then he fully jumped in and helped me build the car. You know, dedicated a bunch of his time to it and then drove with me out to the Playa. And so that was his first burn in 2010.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Can you speak to his relationship with drugs?

[David (Nima's Friend)]

He likes them.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

This was something I heard from other people too, that Nima was a heavy cocaine user and it impacted his work.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

The reason he stopped providing IT services for that first company where I met him was because there was a day where there was a problem in the morning and he couldn't be reached because I think he'd been up at night and then he was sleeping. And then the fact that he was not on call during business hours was a problem.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Losing your job because of drug use is usually considered a sign of a serious problem. Nima did, however, figure things out. He started his own IT business. I do want to distinguish Nima's job from Bob's job for a second. Early news reports first identified Nima as a tech executive. The suspect is another tech executive who knew Li as if he was in the same milieu as Bob. That wasn't really true. He ran a small IT firm. Sometimes he had employees, sometimes it was just him. He helped set up servers for small businesses. He wasn't an engineer or a programmer or a designer. He wasn't a rocket scientist. He was the guy who gets the WI fi working for rocket scientists. He worked in tech. But it's really not the same thing. One thing that is without question is that all three of the momenis, Nima, his mom, and his sister, came up in the world. His mom became a dental hygienist. Nima's small business seemed to be doing okay, but just okay. His sister Kazar, became the most wealthy by marrying a renowned plastic surgeon.

[Thomas (High School Acquaintance)]

I do remember that he had a sister.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

That's Thomas again, who went to high school with Nima.

[Thomas (High School Acquaintance)]

That, and I don't even really know why I felt this way, but I felt like he was very protective of his sister.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

I met her originally when, you know, Nima invited her to my birthday party years ago.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Here's Nima's friend David.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

After that, I would refer to her, you know, as Nima's hot sister. Right? Like, I was happy to have a pretty girl at my party. She was fun, cool, whatever. Nima's hot sister.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

David was shocked when he heard about Nima Being arrested. He had always been a good friend and good to David's son. They all went boating together. But after getting over the shock, he had one thought.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

If Nima did this or is actually involved in this, it probably has something to do with Kazar.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Wow.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

That's the only way you can really make his blood boil like that.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Rooted in childhood and their father's alleged abuse, when this protective sibling bond was carried into adulthood, it would have lasting consequences. That's after the break.

[Chris (Building Resident Witness)]

Foreign.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

Will never be more intelligent than AI. There's going to be two types of companies.

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Daybreak Host)]

Those who are great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

How do we build a future that is human centered?

[Rana El Kalyubi (Podcast Host)]

I'm Rana El Kalyubi, and on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future, and we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find Pioneers of AI wherever you tune in.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Kazar Momeni is about a year younger than her brother Nima. As of this recording, she's still married to a prominent plastic surgeon and lives in Millennium Tower, the tallest residential building in San Francisco. It's a ritzy place. Past residents include professional athletes, Joe Montana and Kevin Durant. It's also famously crooked. Like, literally, it's tilted to one side and sinking. An expensive architectural disaster. Kazar had a reputation as a party girl. She's glamorous. She was a fixture at the Battery, a private social club in San Francisco. She was also friends with Bob Lee, who called her Tina, a name she went by among non Iranians. Whenever I talked to anyone about Nima, old friends, former colleagues, acquaintances, the conversation always led back to Kazar. She was and is central to his life.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

They both will jump into the other's fight. So, like, what I've seen is if Nima's arguing with somebody and she's there, she'll get in the middle and get in the face of the other person.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

And what has he been like? Like, how does he express his anger?

[David (Nima's Friend)]

He'll raise his voice. He'll, you know, he'll puff his chest and get loud and curse. And I've seen that.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

What does that say about Nima and his relationship with his sister?

[David (Nima's Friend)]

Well, it's very. It's very close and, you know, very connected and, well, I would say codependent. I think it's sort of like they've been in the trenches together with their childhood and. And stuff like that.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Text messages between Nima and Kazar paint the clearest picture of their relationship. I obtained several months of texts dating back to before Bob's death. Most of them are rather sweet and mundane. Kazar sends Nima photos of her hair after she had their mom come over and color it. Nima responds, when you want it done right, get mom to do it or do it yourself. They recommended movies to each other. They asked what each other was having for dinner. They made fun of mutual friends. They made plans together on a whim. They argued over whose house to hang out at. In one of the text messages that made me laugh, Nima was complaining about the ultra exclusive clubs that Kazar liked to hang out at. He wrote battery and millennium. Shit getting old. Maybe just me, but I'm never comfortable around people in either of those places. So pretentious and douchey. But the texts occasionally reveal more complicated aspects of their lives. We've asked voice actors to read them. And just a quick note. Like anyone's texts, Nima's and Khazars are filled with typos. So the actors are reading a cleaned up version of the messages.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

What time are you going to Mom's today?

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

No, I have to meet a friend to pick up something.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

In one set of messages From March of 2023, Kazar seemed to confess that she was cheating on her husband, Dino.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

I left my ring with a friend and grabbing lunch with him.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

K. Are you fucking serious? You took off your ring and left it at his fucking place? And now doing lunch with him today? Did you tell anyone else? Does mom and Dino know?

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

Wow. So happy I shared this with you. I made a mistake.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

Pretty fucked up, Chaz.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

During Nima's eventual murder trial, Kazar's extramarital relationships would come up frequently. And it was explained to us that she and Dino were in an open marriage. In another exchange, Kazar appeared to accuse Nima of stealing her cocaine.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

Did you take the rock that was left at my house? I had got that to last me for a month. I can't keep paying for blow and give it to people.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Throughout the texts, the siblings were often arguing about cocaine and accusing each other of taking too many drugs. But the most telling exchange I read from the months before Bob's death actually had to do with Kazar and Nima's father. About six weeks before Nima killed Bob, text messages show that he had a plan to confront their father about abusing Kazar. Their dad lives in Iran. Nima made a plan to meet him in Turkey.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

P.S. i contacted this big law firm in Istanbul to go over and prep for everything before I go talking to them tomorrow. I still have to apply for visa. Lol.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

Just don't. I rather you be safe here with me. Plus, I really want to let the past go. It's my decision. Thank you and love you. But I'd much rather you be safe here and healthy with me than go chasing after that bullshit.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

Khazi Khaz, trust me, I got this.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

Turkey has no jurisdiction on a crime that did not happen on their soil.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

We'll go into it more. Since we already have Interpol records in him. I'm going to use that to get him on Turkey soil. Otherwise, in the airport.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Nima didn't make it to Turkey. He made plans, but got arrested for killing Bob before he was able to make the trip. What I take from all of this is that Nima will go to great lengths to feel like he is defending his sister. He would fly to the other side of the world. He would involve lawyers, get visas, reach out to Interpol, even if she asked him not to. The questions prosecutors would eventually ask is if he would do all that, would he also stab Bob Lee? Especially if he was under the impression, even the mistaken impression, that Bob had done something to his sister. I found about half a dozen people who know Nima, and something that came up frequently was his generosity.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

In my experience, he's very nice and generous. Not always the best conversationalist, you know, but, like, he's very easy to be around, an excellent host, more free with his money than. Than I was. And so he'd want to be going out to do things, and I'd be like, nah, I don't really want it. He's like, no, no, no. I got it. Come with me. Don't worry about it.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

David says that Nima would pay freely, but the phrase I got it, don't worry about it was a useful shorthand for many situations.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

That was a catchphrase of his. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. I've got this. Don't worry about it. I'm not going to tell you. Don't worry about it. Just don't worry about it. You know, he shared what he shared. And, like, I don't think he was hard to get information out of in general, but he chose what he was, you know, offering.

[Thomas (High School Acquaintance)]

All right.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Hi.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

Hi.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Can you introduce yourself?

[Ellen Hewitt (Bloomberg Tech Writer)]

Yes, my name is Ellen Hewitt. I'm a features Writer on the tech team at Bloomberg.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

A colleague of mine at Bloomberg, Ellen Hewitt, reported on Nima right after he was arrested. She spoke with an anonymous source from Nima's past who had a different read on his personality.

[Ellen Hewitt (Bloomberg Tech Writer)]

So this person said that Nima often came across as generous, and he would do things like use his boat or use his money to invite people to do things or bring them close to him. But this person observed that there was another layer beneath that, which is that actually Nima might have been fairly socially awkward, and that he was using his generosity as a means to bring people close to him, almost to pay them to spend time with him, instead of having an actual connection with these people.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Ellen's source said that behind closed doors, this veneer of generosity faded away.

[Ellen Hewitt (Bloomberg Tech Writer)]

They really felt like, based on their observations of Nima and his close relationships, especially with women, that he had had severe trauma in his past and that there was a darkness inside of him that had potentially not been addressed or that would come out in these unexpected ways, either in, like, verbal aggression or violent tendencies. You know, this person said that Nima was a very serious drug user and that he had been a heavy cocaine user for over a decade and that his drug use was quite serious. Their observation was that it had exacerbated some of the underlying trauma and violent tendencies within him.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Most of my sources had never seen Nima be violent. Yes, some of his interests were adjacent to violence. Of course, he was into guns and knives. One person said he had a shotgun stowed in a guitar case. He was interested in martial arts, you know, mall ninja stuff. But the people I spoke to felt like physically harming someone was still a leap from the person they knew. However, the record of Nima's history of violence goes beyond that fight that involved a knife and weed. In August of 2022, a little less than a year before Nima killed Bob, a woman called 911. She told the police that Nima was violent towards her, that he grabbed her by the arm and her waist and pushed her against the counter. She didn't want to press charges, but she did want the police to be present while she grabbed her things and left Nima's apartment. Part of the police report reads, she says he may be bipolar because one minute he will be fine, and the next he will go off for no reason. Mission local, a news site in San Francisco, also reported that Nima's phone number appeared on a website used by sex workers to warn each other about dangerous clients. Some of the complaints about Nima include Definitely unsafe in nature. Definitely a boundary pusher. And rough. Snatched me by the hair after I said not to. Dangerous, uses a lot of coke. Erratic in behavior, possessive, heavily armed. These comments were posted anonymously. They cannot be verified, but together with the police report and the source that my colleagues spoke to, they suggest a man prone to bursts of violence, which he hid from most people.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

I wasn't surprised to learn that he was known in this network of sex workers, but I was surprised to learn that he had a bad reputation.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

This is David again. Nima's good friend.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

It's disappointing. Very, very disappointing. Because I've never thought of him as someone who would escalate violence, not bring a knife to a fist fight.

[Alex Proshaigin (Family Friend)]

Right.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Yeah. Prosecutors have suggested Momeni's sister was at the center of a confrontation between Momeni and Lee, who were seen together leaving Hazar Momeni's apartment building prior to the stabbing. Police eventually released security footage from the night of the murder. It was not good for Nima, and it put his sister Kazar, in the spotlight. Video from Millennium Tower showed Bob and Nima leaving Kazar's apartment together. At 2:03am they climb into Nima's car. Nima drives and then pulls up next to an empty lot under the Bay Bridge. After parking for several minutes, security footage showed Bob stumbling away from Nima's car and Nima speeding off. The video shows him driving erratically back across the Bay Bridge to Emeryville, where he lived. He was home in 13 minutes, about as long as it took for the police to find Bob. The morning of April 4, at 8:00am, six hours after the attack, Kazar called Bob twice. Two hours after that, she texted Bob.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

Just wanted to make sure you're doing okay. Cause I know Nima came down way hard on you. And thank you for being such a classy man. Handling it with class. Love you.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

She sounds concerned, but there's no indication she knows he's dead. At 10pm April 4, 20 hours after Nima stabbed Bob, Kazar texts Nima.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

Nima, I'm a bit conflicted about you, Khazi.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

Call me when you're sober.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

No, Nima.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

That stuff messes up the mind.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

I don't even want to talk about it.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

Getting ready. I'll talk to you later.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

No. Bitch Blow. Messed up your mind and makes you act lunatic. The Bob thing hit hard.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

These texts would eventually be raised at trial as evidence of Kazar understanding her brother's role in Bob's death, though she'd later deny it. When police recovered the knife later that day, Nima's DNA was on the handle and Bob's was on the blade. And as a friend, what position does that put you in? Like, how do you think about that?

[David (Nima's Friend)]

So I guess ultimately I'm more interested in why rather than whether why.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Why? This is what everyone from Bob's family to Nima's friends to complete strangers on the other side of the world wanted to know. Why?

[David (Nima's Friend)]

For how much the activities of all the people involved have been mapped and tracked over these days. With all of the texts and videos and everything, I couldn't imagine Nima getting so upset that he would kill somebody, really, for any reason. But then, you know, I think about it. I'm like, well, there's one reason.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

The text messages between Kazar and Nima also provide a possible motive. He texts Kazar referencing Bob.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

I don't know what he ended up doing at the bar or strip club. I just came home and started preparing for the rape case against both of them, as I told you. Let's talk when you're calm and we can coordinate plans with the attorney. That was a really low point you took all of us to today. Hope you can make better decisions and find some better goals and priorities in life and start thinking about your place in the world and your impact on the world and people around you. I'll help start the case against these guys. But you fucked up and fucked all of us over and over and gonna have to work your way out of this by yourself.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

These texts from Nima are rather evasive, but here's how I read it. He's implying to his sister that he dropped Bob off at a strip club or a bar. And it seems clear he was under the impression that Bob did something to Kazar. This alleged rape that Nima was referring to comes up later in the trial, but Kazar is emphatic that Nima is wrong.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

Strip club rape case Nima, you're fucking psychotic at times. No one enjoys that company. You scare me.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

Hope it was worth it. Stop. Text me. I have nothing to talk to you about. Go do whatever and call whoever you want. You're on your own. You don't need to lie about going to sleep again.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

I'm sorry. My heart is just shattered about Bob. Like, it really is hurting my feelings. We're not perfect, but I just saw him last night. It hurts.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

It was a few hours later that news broke that Bob was dead. The next day, Kazar texts Nima at 7:30 in the morning.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

If I find out anyone hurt him, I'll have no mercy.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

Good morning. Are you okay? You wake up like an animal when you take this stuff.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

No, Nima, I'm not okay. My friend is dead. Nima. Fuck you. You're an animal 24 7. I have no more empathy for anyone right now. I'm going to get to the bottom of this and find out what happened to Bob.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

Okay, sounds good.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

Where do you drop him off? Either I'll ask or the cops will. I want to know.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

I talked to an attorney today about your overdose and attempted rape case. Really need you to take a few tests and talk to attorneys as well. Let me know when you're ready to deal with that.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

Lol.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

O L. In fact, text mom when you get your shit together.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

Lol. You dumb fuck. Bob never touched me. No one did. Your dad did. Who? You kissed his ass and begged to get his approval. No. I'll call the cops, too, since you called them too.

[Voice Actor Reading Texts]

Call your mom when you're sober. Don't call me or Dino for anything else.

[Bloomberg Audio Studios Announcer]

Nope. The cops.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

The theory that prosecutors would eventually present goes like this. Nima was under the impression that something happened to Kazar, perhaps rape or an assault. This set Nima off. He was defensive of his sister. He had been his whole life, and for good reason. Nima played it cool that night by offering Bob a ride. But actually, he blamed Bob for whatever might have happened. And at that moment, Nima was hiding a paring knife from Kezar's kitchen in his jacket with the intent to kill Bob. I spoke to one of Nima's neighbors who asked to remain anonymous. He recalls an interaction that stuck with him. He said that Nima was in a weird state of mind. He called me and asked me if I had any alcohol. Can I bring it all over? I thought he was having a party. I had no idea what the hell happened. I just brought it all over. Nima was alone. He was incoherent, more incoherent than normal. Unable to tell a story coherently. He was like, yo, man, Iono, I'm thinking of traveling. Then he tried to give me his new Eames chair. I said, I can't take this. This is like a $2,000 chair. I looked at the call logs to see when Nima dialed his neighbor. It turns out it was twice. Just hours after the stabbing.

[Alex Proshaigin (Family Friend)]

His life is tarnished. He's probably going to spend a lot of years in jail. His youth is going to be gone by the time he gets out. And nobody's looking at the human part of it.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

That's family. Friend Alex Proche.

[Alex Proshaigin (Family Friend)]

Again, we love Nima, we love Hazar. But our heart was really broken for Manos because we know the kind of hardship she went through to bring this family to where they're at. It didn't come cheap. This was the very last thing that I think would ever get on her mind, that after all of that hard work that she put into this family and herself, she ends up defending her son.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

There are many sad things about the stories of Bob Lee and Nima Momeni. To me, one of the sadder aspects is that Nima, his sister, and his mom fled Iran to escape his father's alleged violence. They started over, but even so, Nima seemingly became a violent person himself. He was able to escape his father physically, but not the cycle of abuse. What remains frustrating about this story is the extent to which it does say quite a bit about San Francisco, only not in the way that venture capitalists and conservative YouTubers thought. San Francisco is a land of boom and bust. There was the Gold rush, then the depression, the dot com boom, and then the dot com crash, the most recent tech boom and the subsequent downturn. And of course, we're in the midst of an AI boom right now. I think that a lot of the issues that you see in San Francisco can be tied to this boom and bust cycle. Housing, volatility, homelessness, tremendous wealth disparities, and this general sense of social unrest. Boom and bust. Boom and bust. That's San Francisco. It's also the momentis in Tehran they were wealthy then in the US they started with nothing. They slept in the same room of a family friend's house. Then they built comfortable lives with luxury clothes, cars, boats, the works. You could argue they were the epitome of the American dream. Then came Bob and Nima's decision to attack him. The bust. As facts about the night of the murder continued to stack up, new details and new characters emerged. And as the story came together, it simply couldn't look less like the random act of violence originally alleged online.

[David Friedberg (Tech Entrepreneur, Podcast Host)]

Obviously, based on this arrest and the storyline, it's quite different than what we all assumed it to be, which was some sort of homeless robbery type moment that has become all too commonplace in sf.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

The person speaking here is David Friedberg, a tech entrepreneur and one of the hosts of the popular all in podcast. In the early days following Bob Lee's death, Friedberg and his co hosts leaned into this theory that it was a random act of violence on the street. Now, Friedberg was walking some of his assumptions back.

[David Friedberg (Tech Entrepreneur, Podcast Host)]

When I read this this morning I was like, man, like, I didn't even consider the possibility that this guy was murdered by someone that he knew. Because I am so enthralled right now by this narrative that SF is so bad and it must be another data point that validates my point of view on sf.

[Prosecutor]

Two things can be true. A tolerance for ambiguity is necessary.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

His co hosts, however, refused to follow suit.

[David Friedberg (Tech Entrepreneur, Podcast Host)]

But I'm saying I didn't even do that. As soon as I heard this, I was like, I was like, oh, a homeless person.

[Prosecutor]

That's a fine assumption. But David, that is a fine assumption to make.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

The other voices here are co host Jason Calacanis, followed by former PayPal executive David Sacks.

[Prosecutor]

That's a fine assumption. Listen, you made that assumption for your own protection.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

David Sachs went on to become President Trump's AI and crypto czar. At the time, he had bet that the murderer had been, quote, a psychotic homeless person.

[David Sacks (Former PayPal Executive)]

We got all these reporters who are basically propagandists trying to claim that crime is down in San Francisco. They're all basically seeking comment from me this morning. Sending emails or trying to dunk on us because we basically talked about the Bobbly case in that way. Listen, we said that we didn't know what happened, but if we were to bet, at least what I said is, I bet this case, it looks like a lot like the Brianna Kupfer case.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Brianna Kupfer was a 24 year old woman murdered at work in Los Angeles. The man who killed her was a repeat violent offender.

[David Sacks (Former PayPal Executive)]

That was logical. That's not conditioning or bias, that's logic.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Do you remember your reaction?

[David (Nima's Friend)]

You know, it didn't make sense to me then and now I've seen most of the trial and all of the evidence and it doesn't make sense to me now.

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Nima's friend David, again.

[David (Nima's Friend)]

I told someone I was hanging out with the other day about how Nima's my friend and they were like, oh, very interested in this. Like, oh, they know about the case on. They're like, oh yeah, I heard it was like a hit job, like somebody, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's been so much wild speculation to fill in the gaps. It was clearly a personal dispute of some kind that happened between the two men. And because the right wing media picked it up to say that San Francisco's going to hell and you know, all of that stuff, right?

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

Yeah. And so they want to be like, we got him. And like that shows that we are not the broken city that you're saying we are, right?

[David (Nima's Friend)]

Well, it's showing. It's a city full of drug use and all night partying and you know, a lot of wild living,

[Sean Wen (Narrator/Reporter)]

a lot of wild living inside the clubs, the drugs and what came to be known as the lifestyle. On the next episode, Foundering is reported, hosted and executive produced by me, Sean Wen. Eric Nasizi's Mental produced our show. Bart Warshaw is our audio engineer. Our story editors are Joshua Brustein, Tom Giles, Ann Vanderme and Nicole Beemster. Boer voice acting by Mark Laidorf, Eliza Jabehari and Ramin Kaivan. Be sure to subscribe and if you like our show, leave a review. Most importantly, tell your friends. See you next time. Foreign.

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