- The COPA vs. Wright trial continued in London this week, with witness testimony coming to a close
- Craig Wright was summoned back to the witness stand to face fresh allegations of forgery
- The forensics experts were also cross-examined
Witness testimony drew to a close this week in the COPA vs. Craig Wright trial, where Wright was called back to the stand to face new allegations of forgery. Two forensics experts were also cross-examined over their findings while cryptocurrency experts were also asked to pitch in on the likelihood of Wright faking the 2016 signing sessions. Let’s find out what happened in week four.
Patrick Madden Faces Questions Over His Methods
The week began with COPA’s forensic specialist, Patrick Madden, on the stand being cross-examined over his claims that Wright’s evidence was made up, in the words of COPA’s counsel in opening submissions, “fraud on an industrial scale.” Wright had already challenged Madden’s competence and bias during his time as a witness, and his barristers followed his lead, taking Madden to task over his lack of qualifications and claiming that he didn’t carry out his tests in the correct manner.
Madden admitted that his expertise and time limitations didn’t allow him to test some of Wright’s theories as to how document data can change and that he did not exactly replicate Wright’s computing environment in some cases. However, these only challenged the merits of a fraction of the hundreds of forgeries Madden has found and ignored the fact that Wright’s own forensics specialists agreed with many of his findings, findings which have been accepted by his team.
Wright’s team also tried to make a great play of the fact that Madden met with COPA’s legal team on regular occasions and that they drafted his reports for which he had provided “bullet points”, to which Wright’s camp for some reason took umbrage.
The day ended with explosive new evidence of potential forgery by Craig Wright or someone in his camp, with his former law firm, Ontier, revealing an email sent to them that conflicted with an email Wright’s wife Ramona Watts sent to Wright’s attorneys to back up a claim over access to crucial accounting software. This led to Wright being summoned back to the stand at the end of the week to face these new allegations.
Crypto Experts Opine on Signing Session Forgery Claims
The following day saw the examination of Arthur Rosendahl, another forensics expert who found evidence of forgeries in Wright’s evidence, who denied Wright’s allegations that he was in bed with BTC Core developers (allegations that Wright’s barristers confirmed they would not be taking further). Rosendahl was emphatic in his findings and Wright’s barrister made little to no headway in challenging his findings or experience.
Wednesday saw cryptocurrency experts from either side take the stand. Many believed that discussions would center around the difference between Bitcoin and BSV, but instead they focused on the 2016 signing sessions and how feasible it would have been for Wright to fake them. Wright’s expert, Zeming Gao, was pushed hard on the fact that he had written several pro-Wright blog posts and articles even after being hired as a supposedly independent expert, which all but proved his lack of independence.
Wright’s Tangled Web
Wright returned to the stand on Friday, where the watching world waited to see how he would explain the presence of a forged email sent to his former solicitors, Ontier, last month which claimed to back up his case.
Wright’s explanation was typically convoluted and hard to believe, as neatly outlined by this tweet from Bitmex Research:
COPA vs CSW – @OntierLLP emails
We apologies for all the confusion. We have finally managed to express the Ontier email situation in a diagram that we believe is reasonably accurate.
It shows that Craig claims:
* Someone spoofed an email from him
* This spoof email is… https://t.co/21cUtIndqc pic.twitter.com/Gle1RfQ4kG— BitMEX Research (@BitMEXResearch) March 2, 2024
The fact that this much decoding is needed from one simple piece of evidence shows how much attention the judge, Justice Mellor, will have to have paid to all the aspects of the trial, which has seen hundreds of pieces of evidence in total.
Friday’s action concluded the evidentiary analysis and witness examination, with written closings due next Friday and oral closings beginning the week after.
