- Craig Wright has been ordered by a judge to appear physically in court
- This stems from a case regarding Wright and the estate of David Kleinman
- Wright is accused of stealing $5 billion in bitcoin
Craig Wright is perhaps one of the most controversial figures in crypto and this has manifested in several feuds he has had with several people both outside of the crypto industry and this has even led to the delisting of bitcoin SV, his flagship token. Wright has been involved in multiple lawsuits over the last few years and most recently began claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of bitcoin, and went as far as filing a trademark for the bitcoin whitepaper.
According to court documents, Craig Wright has been ordered by a Florida court to appear on June 18, 2019, and give testimony regarding an ongoing lawsuit with the David Kleinman estate.
The History of the Case
Wright was first sued by Kleinman estate in February 2018 over the alleged theft of billions in bitcoin from late computer scientist David Kleinman. Kleinman had been a computer scientist and is believed to have been one of the developers behind bitcoin.
It is believed that Wright stole over 5 billion dollars worth of bitcoin from his estate after taking advantage of the fact that Kleinman’s family and friends were not aware of how much wealth he had during his lifetime.
In the official complaint, it was stated that Wright took advantage of this and produced several contracts to support the transfer of these assets to him and also forged Kleinman’s signature several times. Following Kleinman’s death in 2013, Wright reportedly contacted his estate and claimed that he had given up all rights to the work he had done.
The estate wants compensation for the theft of intellectual property as well as the return of the 5 billion in bitcoin that was stolen. The court issued an order on May 3, 2019, for Wright to produce a list of all bitcoin addresses that were owned by him as of December 13, 2019, and also to identify all bitcoin has been transferred to a blind trust since 2011 and produced documents relating to the trust.
Initially, Wright asked the courts to exempt him from appearing physically as doing so would cause ‘undue hardship’ to him. Unfortunately, the judge did not agree and has ordered that he appear in court and state his claim.
Wright has maintained his Innocence throughout court proceedings but the examination of his known bitcoin addresses could shed some more light as to what happened to Kleinman’s fortune and the whether Wright had anything to do with its disappearance.
