Craig Wright’s court case against the estate of his former associate Dave Kleiman continues to make headlines, but for all the wrong reasons – as far as Wright’s concerned, anyway. After breaking down when talking about ‘his’ creation, Bitcoin, being used for nefarious purposes, Wright is currently in the rather unenviable position of waiting to see if he is to be held in civil or criminal contempt of court following his refusal (Wright claims inability) to provide accurate records of Bitcoin ownership dating back to 2013. As if that wasn’t enough, Wright has also seemingly been caught forging an email supposedly sent in 2012 by, of all things, the font.
More Forged Documents from Wright?
One of the issues in Wright’s case, which has seen him reprimanded by the judge for throwing a piece of paper away in disgust, is the legitimacy of documents in the case. Wright is no stranger to forging documents, and this has crept up again, with a piece of ‘evidence’ he submitted having a number of comically amateurish errors. The document in question purports to be a deed of trust between Wright and Kleiman, signed 23rd October 2012, but as lawyer and Bitcoin supporter Stephen Palley pointed out, the metadata of the document shows that the variation of the font Wright supposedly used to draw it up wasn’t around until 2015:
** this is the purported 2012 trust doc, not the image in the original tweet. pic.twitter.com/1d6d9puK53
— Palley (@stephendpalley) July 3, 2019
Allied to this, there are also two problems with the email accompanying the document, which was supposedly sent in 2011. Firstly, the content of the email is virtually identical to one sent in 2014, with only the month and year being different. Everything else, including the time (to the second) is the same. Secondly, the date the email was allegedly sent, June 24, 2011, was a Friday, not a Thursday as the email timestamp claims. This shows further evidence of tampering by Wright, and might suggest why he threw it away in disgust claiming it was a PDF not an email.
the return path. rofl.
also, June 24, 2011 was a Friday. pic.twitter.com/VClq15HRj7
— Palley (@stephendpalley) July 3, 2019
A Weighty Font
The significance for the case is that if the original email is from 2011 it would serve in Wright’s favor, but is the original is proved to be from 2014, as seems more likely, then it would reinforce the notion that Wright forged the documents. With evidence like this leaking out with every session, Wright’s already spurious claims to be Bitcoin’s creator, and the legal holder of the billions worth of dollars of Bitcoin at the heart of this case, are disintegrating before his eyes. The case itself is currently on hold while the judge considers Wright’s conduct, with a potential pickup date around August, where Wright may find himself fined…or imprisoned.
