The estate of David Kleiman has been in court with Craig Wright for several months now as the pair argue over a number of Bitcoins. Kleiman’s estate believes that Wright stole 1.1 million Bitcoins from David Kleiman, and that he should return at least half of them. However, the court case has been dogged by scandals, courtroom drama and forged documents. In the latest scandal, the founder of Bitmessage has confirmed that messages between Kleiman and Wright are forgeries. The evidence put forward by Wright could very well be thrown out of court and offer the win to the Kleiman estate.
Using Features That Didn’t Exist Back Then
Wright and his lawyers have presented a number of messages from the secure messaging system known as Bitmessage. However, the court questioned Jonathan Warren – Bitmessage creator – about the legitimacy of these documents. According to Warren, the documents are forged as version 4 addresses were not even a concept at the time Wright claims to have used them. Additionally, Wright allegedly send messages to Kleiman months before Bitmessage went live – yet another impossibility.
Wright’s Lawyer Trying to Silence Warren
Throughout Warren’s entire deposition by the court, Schneur Zalman Kass – Craig Wright’s lawyer in Florida – kept calling out “objection”. Kass tried to object virtually every single question posed to him by the courts, hinting that Kass knew what Wright had done and was trying to prevent the truth from coming out.
Not the First Time Fake Documents Called into Question
Back in a hearing in July, Wright allegedly submitted a series of documents that contained a font that wasn’t available at the time of writing. The crypto news world went wild with this story, trashing Wright as a fraud. However, the image was scanned years after being written, and it’s this scanned image that made it into the courtroom – not the original document. Fake news has plagued this court case from day one, but this new testimony from Warren looks like the final nail in the coffin for Wright’s claims.
The court case is still rumbling on, but it’s looking more and more likely like Kleiman’s estate will come out victorious. If Wright is found guilty for contempt of court and submitting forged documents, Wright could face a hefty fine and even a possible suspended sentence. This case isn’t going to help Wright’s other cases in the UK, with Peter McCormack already gearing up to prove Wright isn’t who he claims.
