Craig Wright, the self-proclaimed father of Bitcoin, was recently given until April 17 to hand over 11,000 documents. It is part of a drawn-out court case in which Wright is being sued by the estate of David Kleiman for billions in BTC.
He Has to Produce the Documents
Wright was ordered by a US District Court judge to produce 11,000 documents, which he claims are held by a bonded courier by April 17. In his ruling, the judge overruled Wright’s objection due to client-attorney privilege.
The Court Battle
This is the latest development in a court case that has been going on for months. It will be interesting to see how Wright tries to get out of the latest ruling. Wright, without any evidence, has been claiming that he is the inventor of Bitcoin.
Dave Kleiman passed away in 2013, and his estate believes that he and Wright invented Bitcoin together. As a result, the Kleiman estate sued Wright in February 2018, claiming half of all the BTC, which is worth about $5 billion, which is allegedly held by Satoshi Nakamoto. According to the lawsuit, the estate is asking for access to access to documents that will unlock the Tulip Trust, which is believed to hold about 1 million BTC, which was mined by Satoshi Nakamoto in the early days of BTC.
A History of Fake Documents
According to Wright, the only reason he cannot produce the documents is because of attorney-client privilege. However, the judge dismissed Wright’s arguments in March 2020 since the documents produced by Denis Bosire Mayaka, his Kenyan lawyer, were most likely forgeries.
The recent ruling has effectively overruled any objections that Wright had. Wright claimed that there was no proof the documents were fake. Besides that, he said that previous documents that had been proved forgeries should not prejudice any ruling made by the judge. However, the judge ruled that the claim of attorney-client privilege by Wright was not erroneous or contrary to the law as his lawyer had claimed. Thus, the order to produce the documents was not erroneous or illegal. According to the judge, Wright had failed to prove attorney-client privilege.
Besides that, the judge said she was puzzled by the argument that a judge had to blindly accept documents by Wright. According to her, the court must take into account Wright’s history of producing forged documents and perjury when making an evaluation.
Other Court Battles
Wright’s battle with the Kleiman estate is not the only court battle he is facing. In 2019, he sued Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin, Adam Back, the CEO of Blockstream, Roger Ver, the founder of Bitcoin.com, Peter MacCormack, a podcaster, and a Twitter user going by the name Hodlonaut. In January, he dropped his lawsuit against Back and covered the $8,400 in legal fees. The lawsuit against Back was for libel. He claimed that Back had tarnished his name by labeling him a fraudster.
Wright continues to maintain that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. However, if he came out today and said he was not Nakamoto, the current legal battle would quickly dissipate.
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