San Francisco Police have revealed why they didn't bother to dispel the social media robbery rumors surrounding Cash App CEO Bob Lee's death.
Early on, online sleuths speculated that the 43-year-old tech titan had been a victim of a fatal robbery on April 4, 2023, after shadowy CCTV footage showed a man wheeling a suitcase away as Lee lay dying yards away.
Police declined to say whether or not the stranger was a potential suspect in Lee's murder or if he had been a victim of robbery.
Now, police have revealed their reasoning behind keeping the public in the dark.
'If that's the story people are gonna run with, that is an advantage for us because the people who are responsible, we don't want to know what we know,' San Francisco Police Sergeant Brent Dittmer told Dateline in an episode due to air tonight.
'Let everybody think that this is whatever's on Twitter at that time. We'll work on what actually happened.'
Nima Momeni was found guilty of second-degree murder in December for stabbing Lee to death.
Lee allegedly had casual sex with Momeni's sister Khazar after he separated from his wife.
Early on, online sleuths speculated that the 43-year-old tech titan had been a victim of a fatal robbery on April 4, 2023, after shadowy CCTV footage showed a man wheeling a suitcase away as Lee lay dying yards away
Police declined to say whether or not the stranger was a potential suspect in Lee's murder or if he had been a victim of robbery. 'Let everybody think that this is whatever's on Twitter at that time. We'll work on what actually happened,' San Francisco Police Sergeant Brent Dittmer said
CCTV footage showed Lee collapsing in front of an apartment building before his death
At a party, on the night of the murder, Momeni confronted Lee about his sister, asking if she was doing drugs or 'anything inappropriate.' According to a witness, Lee told Momeni that nothing inappropriate had happened.
Nima and Lee met up again later that night at Khazar's luxury apartment in Millennium Tower.
Surveillance footage showed the two getting into Nima's white BMW at around 2am on April 4 and leave the scene.
He drove Lee to a secluded area several streets over, where he stabbed the Cash App founder multiple times with a kitchen knife and left him to bleed out.
The tech mogul was found staggering on a deserted downtown street, dripping a trail of blood and calling for help. Lee later died in hospital.
Prosecutors argued that Momeni took Lee's life on the 300 block of Main Street in the ritzy Rincon Hill neighborhood after hearing that his drug-dealing friend plied his younger sister with GHB and other drugs and sexually assaulted her.
Khazar, the wife of a prominent California plastic surgeon, was long believed to be having an affair with Lee and attending 'sex-swinging' parties with him.
In lengthy testimony, she accused the alleged drug dealer, Jeremy Boivin, of giving her the 'date rape' drug GHB, pulling her pants down and sexually assaulting her while she remained unconscious.
Timestamps show the shadowy figure wheeling a suitcase at 2:36am, just minutes after Lee was stabbed and dialed 911
Nima Momeni was found guilty of second-degree murder in December for stabbing Lee to death
Lee was allegedly have casual sex with Momeni's sister Khazar (pictured) after he separated from his wife. Before his death, at a party, Momeni approached Lee to question him about his sister doing drugs
Khazar stated that Lee brought Boivin to her home on the morning of April 3, 2023, the day before the fatal stabbing.
'I did not know he's a drug dealer, as we don't get close to our drug dealers or invite them upstairs even. He was introduced to me as a friend,' she said. '[H]e brought me a big tank of nitrous and he had a big bottle of a liter of GHB.'
Khazar later went to Boivin's home, where Lee and another friend also stopped by. After Lee and is friend left, she claimed she passed out after consuming drugs.
She told the court that she had consumed three shots of a drink mixed with GHB before 'passing out.'
'He asked me about GHB and gave me, like, this sweet little drink, a little shot. And I drank it. I thought I could trust him,' Khazar said.
'I remember waking up twice: One time he (Boivin) pulled down my pants and slapped my ass. And another time he grabbed my a**, but I couldn't move or do anything.'
Momeni's defense attorneys claimed Lee was on a multi-day drug bender of cocaine and ketamine that made him agitated and violent, and that he attacked the defendant with a knife.
They said Momeni was forced to use his Krav Maga martial arts skills in the early morning hours of April 4, 2023, after 'making a 'bad joke' that upset Lee - and did not realize he had stabbed him.
The assistant district attorney mocked Momeni's defense saying he grilled Lee earlier in the evening about what happened to his sister at the drug dealer's apartment, and sent text messages saying that the two men were creeps and sexual predators.
Lee's ex-wife, Krista Lee, said her former spouse could have given anyone the 'shirt off his back.'
'Had Bob been approached by someone that was trying to mug him, he would’ve given him, them, the shirt off his back, his wallet, his keys, his clothes. He would’ve said: "Hey, man, let me buy you a meal. Please don’t hurt me,"' she told Dateline.
Momeni faces up to 16 years to life in prison.
Friday’s episode of Dateline features an in-depth look at the timeline leading up to Lee’s murder, extensive and dramatic surveillance video, and exclusive interviews with his brother and children and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. Dateline airs Fridays at 9pmET.
