US Judge Gives Craig Wright Until Feb. 3 to Access 1.1M Bitcoin at Heart of Ongoing Lawsuit

Published on by Coindesk | Published on

Concluding a summer-long sanctions and contempt hearing, District Magistrate Bruce Reinhart found the nChain chief scientist in contempt of court for failing to produce a full list of his bitcoin holdings acquired before Dec. 31, 2013.Reinhart awarded Kleiman $650,000 in legal expenses, and deemed it a fact that the plaintiff retains a 50/50 ownership in Wright's assets and intellectual property, developed jointly with David Kleiman.

The previous hearing was focused solely on the amount and location of Wright's bitcoin, she said, so Wright's partnership with David Kleiman was beyond Judge Reinhart's remit.

Wright has until Feb. 3 to file a notice with the court that the courier "Has appeared from the shadows."

Wright previously testified it would be "Impossible" to comply with the court order to identify his bitcoin before the bonded courier returned 100 percent of the assets to his control on Jan. 1, 2020.Wright has not confirmed publicly whether the courier arrived and has not moved bitcoin said to be held in the trust.

In the original Trust document, it's claimed Wright entrusted all his cryptographic assets to David Kleiman in 2012, to be returned in full eight years later.

This directly challenges Ira Kleiman's allegation that Wright expropriated his brother's bitcoin.

Elsewhere, Kleiman has submitted communications from Wright showing he's owed 30 percent of the trust's holdings.

Buried among 428 other documents, the Tulip Trust III filing may contain evidence as to who actually has ownership over bitcoin mined jointly by Wright and the late Dave Kleiman.

Wright submitted the document "Without any explanation as to its late disclosure, or even an email" signaling its production, according to plaintiff's counsel Velvel Freedman of Roche Freedman LLP.In the most recent filing, Judge Bloom upheld a view that Wright willfully obstructed the court proceedings, and upheld a sanction for Kleiman's legal fees.

The case continues this week with depositions from Wright, his wife Ramona Watts and Andrew O'Hagan, who interviewed Wright at length for an essay in the London Review of Books.

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