Craig Wright’s Defense Team Faults Court for Doubting His Credibility

Craig Wright’s attorneys have taken the offensive against the court in the ongoing lawsuit between them and the estate of David Kleiman, Craig’s former associate.

The team recently filed an objection to the recent Order on Discovery, in which the United States District Court in the Southern District of Florida ordered them to produce over 11,000 documents that are relevant to the case. 

The Battle for Important Documents

In their filing, the team argued that the requirement was an erroneous ruling that’s contrary to the rule of law and which should be reversed.

The origins of the case aren’t new to anyone who has been following the crypto space. Wright and Kleiman worked together for a brief time almost a decade ago, and when Kleiman died in 2013, Wright approached his family with an offer to purchase his Bitcoin holdings and help them liquidate it.

At the time, the Bitcoins in contention were about 1,100,111 in number and were worth about $8 billion. Since then, the battle between Wright and the Kleiman estate – represented by David’s older brother, Ira – has raged on. It’s been one of the most high-profile cases in the space for years, and its resolution could spell redemption or doom for the Bitcoin SV proponent.

These documents, however, seem to be rather crucial to Wright and his defense, because he has tried severally to restrict them from being brought into the proceedings.

He tried to claim attorney-client privilege over them using several legal arguments. Still, Magistrate Judge Bruce E Reinhart dismissed them all, claiming that Wright’s sworn statements didn’t hold any water and that he had a history of making false claims and documentation. 

Wright’s Many Lies Haunt Him

One of Wright’s many gaffes was in relation to the Tulip Trust, which held about 1.1 million BTC from the start. The computer scientist claimed that a third party had gained access to the private keys for the trust and would be delivering them to Wright under court orders.

When pressed on the matter, however, Wright claimed that they were protected by privilege relating to his investments, spousal privilege, and attorney-client relationships with one Denis Bosire Mayaka – an attorney from Kenya.

Mayaka provided a letter to the court to try proving his identity, but given how poorly it was written, the court doubted its credibility.

That doubt has been the cornerstone of the latest argument from Wright’s team. In their objection, they explained that prior determinations shouldn’t be an issue, as Mayaka isn’t the defendant in this case.

Several other claims by Wright have been proven to be false. For instance, he wrote on March 31 that he never liked media house and whistleblowing site WikiLeaks, nor did he want them to use Bitcoin as a payment means. However, publicly available information and web links contradicted such information. In the wake of PayPal’s decision to freeze WikiLeaks’ account in 2010, Wright wrote on The Conversation that the company was at fault for not using Bitcoin as their payment method.

Given how much he’s lied over the years, it’s understandable that the court would want to doubt both his credibility and that of his “attorney.”