The US judge presiding over the Craig S Wright vs Kleiman case has ordered Wright to produce a list of requested documents by March 12. The latest filing on March 9 relates to Wright’s refusal to give details of how he obtained the list of Bitcoin addresses purportedly holding Satoshi’s estimated 1.1 million BTC, claiming both attorney-client privilege and spousal privilege.
“I Am Lawyer”
Since that refusal back in February, Kleiman and Wright’s lawyers have been arguing back and forth over whether the privilege claims are invalid or not. So it is nice to finally have the judge step in and put an end to this nonsense.
Bizarrely, to back up his claims of attorney-client privilege, Wright had produced an un-notarized sworn declaration from Denis Bosire Mayaka, a lawyer in Kenya, which read:
I am lawyer and obtained my bachelor of law degree in 2007 from Moi University in Kenya… I have represented Dr. Craig Steven Wright since 2012 on, among others, investment matters. Specifically, I represent Dr. Wright and Wright International Investments Ltd in connection with the Tulip Trust documents, including the Tulip Trust dated July 7, 2017.
He also produced a printed out LinkedIn profile to ‘confirm’ Mayaka’s qualification.
Craig Wright Doesn’t Fool the Judge
Unsurprisingly to everyone (and this must surely also include Wright), Judge Bruce Reinhart gave short shrift to Mayaka’s statement.
First, as finder of fact, I disregard the Mayaka Declaration because it has not been adequately authenticated. Particularly given my prior finding that Dr. Wright has produced forged documents in this litigation, I decline to rely on this kind of document, which could easily have been generated by anyone with word processing software and a pen.
Perhaps Craig Wright had been hoping the judge had forgotten that he had produced forged documents previously?
Even if Mayaka did have an attorney-client relationship with Wright’s wife, Ramona Watts, which the judge did not establish, the information was intended to be provided to Kleiman. There was no intention for the information to remain confidential, and hence attorney-client privilege does not apply.
For the same reason, the judge threw out Wright’s claim that spousal privilege applied when Ms Watts gave the information to him.
Wright now has until March 12 to provide the information about how he obtained the list of Bitcoin addresses.
What do you make of the latest Craig Wright lawsuit claims? Add your thoughts below!
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