Wright lost his case against Kleiman in August. Courts deemed he couldn’t prove he’s solely responsible for half a million Bitcoins he mined with Kleiman prior to 2014. That means the case that ended less than 90 days ago is now being re-opened.
Wright battled with Ira Kleiman’s estate through his living relative David Kleiman. At the time of the court’s decision, the 500,000 BTCs were worth over $5 billion.
A motion filed on November 1st in a Florida courtroom states that both parties have reached a non-binding agreement in principle following several conference calls and in-person meetings. The plaintiffs were claiming they were no longer pursuing active litigation, but they found their efforts to be a waste of time.
The law firm representing the plaintiff’s case wrote in a motion that on October 30th, 2019, they were informed Mr. Wright could no longer afford to finance the settlement and that he was “breaking” the non-binding settlement agreement.
So What’s Next?
Lawyers representing the Kleiman estate are now preparing for a new court date on March 30th of next year.
Wright is Now Fighting Back against an Old Deposition
Roche Freedman is now working to obtain a deposition of James Wilson, a chief financial officer of Craig Wright’s companies in Australia. He worked for Wright between 2012 and 2013. The plaintiffs think the comments Wilson made during that deposition are going to be crucial to the case. He was the one looking over Wright’s companies when they were sold to the Kleiman estate in exchange for Bitcoin.
Wilson will be visiting Washington on November 8th to be deposed once again.
In lieu of that upcoming date, Wright’s lawyers are suggesting they will not consent to a deposition because they haven’t received 14 days’ notice for an out of state deposition as required by the law. The court documents also show the team will decide whether or not they’re willing to go through with a video deposition within the next week.
This is all quite a bit of red tape to go around for Kleiman’s estate and Wright’s conduct has certainly put a strain on things.
Forgery Complaints
Emails, invoices and BitMessages were analyzed over the summer time and investigator Matthew Edman uncovered the fact there’s a good chance Craig Wright tampered with documents relating to the Tulip Trust, an account where funds were being held. This has created an atmosphere of doubt around Wright’s integrity, although a cross examination from opposing lawyers gave them a chance to refute claims.
The story around Wright and the $10 billion-plus within the Kleiman estate just keeps getting more and more interesting. And it seems, it’s not exactly over yet.