Ira Kleiman has filed a motion to stay discovery in the Dave Kleiman probate case until after his motion to dismiss Lynn’s petition, in which she claims part ownership of W&K Info Defence, is heard.
The probate case concerns the estate of the late Dave Kleiman, who is at the heart of the Kleiman v Wright litigation. Lynn Wright had filed a petition laying claim to a portion of W&K Info Defence, the company that Ira alleges his brother founded and used to mine Bitcoin with Craig Wright. The appearance of Lynn Wright undermines Ira’s version of events in that lawsuit, and if she does indeed have the stake in W&K she is claiming to have, then Ira was not entitled to use W&K to sue Craig Wright in the Kleiman litigation. Predictably, Ira’s response was to file a motion to dismiss Lynn’s petition in the probate court.
Legally, a pending motion to dismiss can be good reason to stay discovery. Ira says that allowing discovery to move forward before the motion to dismiss is decided would place an undue burden and expense on his side. He says this is exacerbated because of the amount of documents requested by Lynn in discovery: she has made 50 separate document requests, many of which Ira says are only relevant to the Kleiman v Wright litigation, so Ira says he will need to spend time objecting to many of the discovery requests.
He also argues that Lynn waited over seven years after Dave Kleiman’s death to file the probate petition, so she shouldn’t be able to argue against delaying discovery by a few months, and says that Lynn asking the probate court to prevent Ira using W&K to sue Craig doesn’t make sense if she does, as the lawsuit should be lucrative for W&K.
However, the reality is that Lynn Wright is apparently the owner of as much as half or even more of W&K. According to her petition, she is the single largest shareholder in the company. If that is the case, and it is accepted by the court, then her decisions as to who W&K should and shouldn’t sue aren’t relevant. The court will certainly not second-guess the operational decisions made by a company’s authorised persons, and especially not at the behest of Ira Kleiman, who not only has no business questioning the affairs of W&K in this case, but who now appears to have fraudulently held himself out as a member of W&K on multiple occasions, including listing himself as ‘manager member’ on W&K’s last two annual reports.
Should the court accept Lynn’s evidence as to the actual membership of W&K, then Ira’s pattern of behaviour begins to look a lot like an attempt to steal the company – and the much-speculated Satoshi Nakamoto fortune at issue in the Kleiman v Wright litigation- in broad daylight.
The motion to dismiss is set to be heard on December 3, so if the Court grants this application, then discovery would be unlikely to begin before 2021.
Kleiman attorneys’ conspiracy theory
Ira’s filing reveals more than just the procedural.
For example, Ira mentions that the Kleiman v Wright lawsuit should be ‘lucrative’ for the plaintiffs. In the context of the probate case, this refers to W&K (and by extension, Lynn Wright), but in practical terms, he’s also talking about his own interest in the Kleiman v Wright litigation. To imply that lawsuit is worth a lot of money is not controversial, but given that Craig Wright’s legal team has consistently called Ira Kleiman’s lawsuit a cynical cash grab, that particular use of language is unfortunate.
It also reveals the aggressive tactics being used by Kleiman’s attorneys to leverage this probate case in their favour—or to prevent it from being used in defence of Craig.
No doubt, the appearance of Lynn throws a spanner in the works of a claim that was already on a loose factual foundation. Large parts of Ira’s lawsuit depend on a characterisation of W&K that he has yet to be able to substantiate with evidence. Now, evidence which doesn’t corroborate Ira’s version of events has appeared, and in keeping with his approach toward his lawsuit against Craig Wright, Ira openly accuses Lynn of acting as a proxy for her ex-husband, improperly launching a petition against Dave Kleiman’s estate in order to falsely claim a stake in W&K so that it might lend more credence to Craig’s defence.
The response of Lynn Wright’s attorney is appropriately indignant, as for this allegation to be true, all of Craig Wright, his attorneys, Lynn Wright and her own attorneys must all be colluding across totally separate causes of action in order to defraud both the Dave Kleiman estate and the court itself. Included in Ira’s filing is a letter from Lynn’s attorney to Ira’s, which appears to be a response to this conspiracy theory.
Clearly, it appears that you are frustrated with the [Kleiman v Wright lawsuit]. And you are right, these are ‘high stakes’ matters. High enough, that someone, perhaps your client, may mislead. But, unlike you, I have no dog in the fight and will not risk my career on this or any other case. Likely the facts will show that, as in most cases, there are no angels on either side of the “v”, but Mrs. Wright’s petition has merit. It’s really not too difficult of a case unless you start bringing in extraneous “things” in an effort to try and obfuscate things.
While collusion between Craig Wright, Lynn Wright and their attorneys would be convenient for Ira Kleiman’s quest to win his ‘lucrative’ lawsuit against Wright, the much simpler explanation is that Lynn Wright and her attorney are trying to ensure that her interest in a company she helped create survives Ira’s various court actions.
If Lynn’s filing does reveal a conspiracy, it is between Ira and his lawyers. Based on Lynn’s evidence about the constitution of W&K, Ira has usurped his way onto the W&K annual reports and is now using that false authority to sue Wight and claim the assets of W&K – which at least Ira believes to be the Satoshi Nakamoto fortune.
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