Alabama is among forty three states to collect money from a court settlement with the owners of an alternative online banking system called “Cash App.” Oregon and California led the action, which alleged that the parent company of the App , Block Incorporated, deceived customers on the safety of the system, failed to provide promised safeguards and resolution services required by law. The full amount of the suit is $43 million dollars. Alabama will receive just over $500,000 of that total. In the settlement, Block denies any wrongdoing.
The settlement follows the murder of the founder of Cash App in 2022 and the conviction of a technical consultant in 2023. A San Francisco jury found Nima Momeni guilty of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee, which carries a sentence of 16 years to life, rejecting the defendant’s claim that he had acted in self defense.
Jurors took seven days to deliver their verdict against Momeni in 2023, death of Lee, a beloved tech mogul who was found staggering on a deserted downtown street, dripping a trail of blood and calling for help. Lee, 43, later died at a hospital.
“We’re happy that Nima Momeni will not be on the streets, he no longer has the opportunity to harm anybody else in this world,” the victim’s brother, Tim Oliver Lee, told reporters. “We think justice was done here today.”
Mahnaz Tayarani, the mother of the defendant, had tears in her eyes Tuesday as she called the verdict unfair.
“My son is not the person that they think,” she said. “He’s very kind, he’s very loving and respectful and caring.”
Prosecutors said Momeni planned the attack on Lee, driving him to an isolated spot under the Bay Bridge and stabbing him three times, including once to the heart, with a knife he took from his sister’s kitchen. They say Momeni was angry with Lee for introducing his younger sister to a drug dealer she says gave her GHB and other drugs and then sexually assaulted her.
But Momeni testified on the stand that Lee was the one who attacked him with a knife, angry after the tech consultant chided him about spending more time with his family instead of searching for a strip club that night. Momeni, who studies martial arts, said he didn’t realize he had fatally wounded Lee or that Lee was even hurt.
Momeni is still awaiting sentencing. His attorneys reportedly plan to ask for a new trial.
