Jury delivers verdict in Kleiman v. Wright case

In Miami, a jury has delivered a verdict in the case of the self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator Craig Wright and the family of his former partner Dave Kleiman. Law360 reporter Carolina Bolado reported this.

Defense win on all claims except conversion. Jury awards $100 million to W&K Info Defense on that count. No punitive damages.

— Carolina Bolado (@CarolinaBolado) December 6, 2021

According to the verdict, Wright must pay $100 million in compensation to W&K Info Defense Research for conversion of the “misappropriated” bitcoins. In 2019, the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto tried to prove to the court that Kleiman had no rights to the claimed stake in the company, and spoke of an alleged disavowal by the latter of his stake.

“I feel incredibly happy and vindicated. I am not a fraud and never have been”, the words of Wright, cited by CoinDesk.

The jury rejected other claims against him.

Earlier WizSec experts said the jury was “simply choosing between two erroneous decisions”:

“Neither Wright nor Kleiman had anything to do with the creation of Bitcoin and didn’t mine BTC, so they’re quarrelling over fictional assets that never existed in the first place (or are trying to lay claim to other people’s bitcoins).”

Neither Wright nor Kleiman had anything to do with the creation of Bitcoin and didn’t mine any bitcoins, so they’re quarrelling over fictional assets that never existed in the first place (or are trying to lay claim to other people’s bitcoins).

— WizSec Bitcoin Research (@wizsecurity) November 30, 2021

“If the jury ultimately orders Wright to pay Kleiman a large sum, the reporting should focus not on the amount but on the fact that these are money Wright would never have and would never possess,” the experts added.

In WizSec’s view, in any case, “this is a mockery of justice,” but Wright’s losses would be at least “poetic justice”.

In February 2018, Ira Kleiman, the brother of the late computer forensics expert and mathematician Dave Kleiman, filed suit against Craig Wright.

The plaintiff alleged that the latter had misappropriated 1.1 million BTC, allegedly belonging to Kleiman, who is linked to the creation of the first cryptocurrency.

At the time, WizSec researchers found that the Bitcoin addresses mentioned in the suit had never belonged to Kleiman or Wright.

In August 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida ordered Wright to forfeit 500,000 BTC. The self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto refused to participate in the settlement of the claims. Proceedings were resumed.

In May 2020, 145 early Bitcoin addresses signed a message accusing Wright of fraud and perjury. He claimed that these addresses belonged to him.

In June of that year, Wright and Kleiman’s lawyers presented a list of 36 witnesses. Among the experts they included early Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen and crypto-philosophy evangelist Andreas Antonopoulos. In his testimony, Andresen did not acknowledge Wright as the creator of digital gold and suggested that he may have been misled.

In September 2020, the court rejected Wright’s motion for simplified proceedings. He had previously stated that the statute of limitations had expired and that the plaintiff could not prove an oral agreement.

In February 2021, Wright demanded from the Bitcoin Core developers to restore access to two Bitcoin wallets. One address is linked to the Mt. Gox exchange hack.

As Wright’s defense argued, it rested on two points: a diagnosed autism spectrum disorder and the absence of a written agreement with Kleiman. The defendant’s attorney said that, due to autism, he and Kleiman interpreted the word ‘partner’ differently.

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