Latest news about Bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies. Your daily crypto news habit.
A Florida judge has rejected several of Craig Wrightâs objections during a hearing, slamming him for producing forged documents and giving perjured testimony.
Judge Bruce Reinhart has slammed Craig Wright for producing forged documents and giving perjured testimony during the ongoing litigations between Wright and Ira Kleiman during a hearing concerning the Tulip Trust.Â
Reinhart questioned Wrightâs credibility, noting that â in the past â the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto had openly lied to the court:
âParticularly given my prior finding that Dr. Wright has produced forged documents in this litigation, I decline to rely on this kind of document, which could easily have been generated by anyone with word processing software and a pen [...] I give no weight to sworn statements of Dr. Wright that advance his interests but that have not been challenged by cross-examination and for which I cannot make a credibility determination. I have previously found that Dr. Wright gave perjured testimony in my presence.â
On March 9, 2019, Judge Reinhart ordered Wright to produce a list of his Bitcoin holdings â which Wright again claimed he could not do as it was held by a blind trust that he could not access. Wright estimated that it would take until January 2020 for the list to be delivered by bonded courier.
Judge Bloom allowed Wright until Feb. 3, 2020 to file a notice with the court âindicating whether or not this mysterious figure has appeared from the shadows and whether the Defendant now has access to the last key slice needed to unlock the encrypted file.â
On January 6, 2020, Wright produced documents evidencing a previously unidentified trust â âTulip Trust IIIâ. Both Judge Bloom and the plaintiffs requested several depositions seeking to establish how Wright obtained the Tulip Trust III documentation, to which Wright objected to numerous interrogatories based attorney-client privilege and spousal privilege.
Wright rejects discovery asserting attorney-client and spousal privileges
Wright claimed that his wife is the trustee of the Tulip Trust, and received the trust agreement as an encrypted file during December 2019 from the trustâs counsel.
As such, Wright asserted that the communications between his wife, Ramona Watts, and the trustâs counsel, Denis Mayaka, are protected by attorney-client privilege, adding that communications between he and his wife are protected by spousal privilege.
The judge determined that âthe record does not establish that an attorney-client relationship exists between Mr. Mayaka and Ms. Watts,â also disregarding Wrightâs âMayaka Declarationâ as it had not been adequately authenticated. Further, the judge found that the Trust document failed to identify Mayaka as counsel, noting that that âhe is assigned a different role.â
As such, the judge concluded that âthe record does not establish that Mr. Mayaka is counsel to the Trustee of the Tulip Trust,â adding that Wright and Mayaka do not have an independent attorney-client relationship.
Judge requests judicial assistance from U.K. court
On the same day, the judge requested judicial assistance from the Senior Master of the Queenâs Bench Division of the High Court in the United Kingdom in the litigation between Kleiman and Wright.
The ongoing case concerns the effort of Ira Kleiman, the deceased brother of David Kleiman, to claim his brotherâs share of the Tulip Trust â a stash of more than one million Bitcoins (BTC) that was purportedly set up by Wright and Kleiman following their supposed creation of Bitcoin.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.