There was plenty of action in a Miami federal courtroom on Monday where testimony continued in the Kleiman v Wright lawsuit.
Summary
Kleiman v Wright lawsuit
The case being brought by Ira Kleiman, brother of Dave Kleiman (deceased), seeks at least half of the 1.1 million Bitcoin that he claims was created as a direct result of Dave’s partnership with Dr. Craig Wright. Ira claims the two men together acted as Satoshi Nakamoto in writing the Bitcoin white paper, creating Bitcoin, and mining the coins currently estimated at $65 billion.
Craig Wright testifies
Before things got ramped up with Craig taking the stand, defense attorney Amanda McGovern requested a short break. It seemed likely that the defense team was not necessarily on board with Craig taking the stand again. Andres Rivera, Ramona Watts, and Craig were seen arguing amongst each other. While the details of their conversation is unknown, It appeared Craig was insisting he be allowed to testify. After a few moments the discussion ended and Craig took the stand. The defense covered much of the early life of Craig to which the plaintiffs objected on the grounds of irrelevance and was sustained by Judge Bloom.
The emails case
The bombshell of the day actually comes from evidence introduced by Ira in his efforts to portray Craig as a forger. There was a specific email allegedly sent from Craig to Dave in 2008 needing help with some things that were described as Bitcash or Bitcoin. Upon forensic dissection, this email was sent from an IP address that Jamie Wilson is known to have had access. Adding fuel to the “weird” fire, Ira is known to have many email addresses and access to Dave’s email where he sends himself birthday wishes each year after Dave’s death. The plaintiffs were blindsided when it was discovered that Craig could not have sent an email from the originating address identified in the email. This email address was established on the RCJBR.org domain which turns out to be the personal family domain for Craig, wife Ramona, and their three children. Craig had not become acquainted with Ramona until 2010 nor did they become a pair until 2011. The timeline is severely suspect. Emails cannot originate three years before the address was created. This draws the possible conclusion that Ira was acting with Jamie on forging these emails to frame Craig. That alone should provide enough doubt for the jury to disregard Ira’s claim.
This case has been extraordinarily vanilla until today’s bombshell evidence provided by the defense, compliments of Ira. According to Kurt Wuckert Jr., it was that “aha” moment in the courtroom as he described in his daily courtroom update seen here:
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The decision is close
The court is expected to finish with all testimony and may actually begin closing arguments on Tuesday. The jury may have a decision before the Thanksgiving break if all moves quickly with the closing. Otherwise, they may have to return Monday following the long weekend to finalize the decision in the case.
Author: Chuck Owens
