Did Dr. Craig Wright contradict himself? Is he a multi-billionaire? Plaintiff’s lawyer Vel Freedman spent the majority of his time on Day 9 of the Kleiman v Wright trial showing the court evidence that would allege that Dr. Wright is both dishonest and a multi-billionaire.
After four long days, the plaintiff concluded their examination of Dr. Wright and called digital forensics investigator Dr. Matthew Edman to the stand. But before doing this, the plaintiff spent a lot of time and energy trying to prove that Dr. Wright is very wealthy and that he frequently contradicts himself.
Destroying credibility, estimating Craig Wright’s net worth
In an attempt to tarnish Dr. Wright’s credibility and cast doubt on his truthfulness, the plaintiff produced evidence that suggested Dr. Wright was contradicting his testimony.
At one point in his examination, Freedman produced a list of questions that were created by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and sent to Ira Kleiman for answering. Dr. Wright claimed to have never seen the said list of questions; however, Freedman produced another piece of email evidence which purportedly showed Dr. Wright giving Ira suggested answers to the ATO’s questions.
In another instance, Freedman asked Dr. Wright if the IP he owns is worth $252 billion, Dr. Wright denied this, saying that the IP was not worth $252 billion. However, the plaintiff produced another piece of evidence—a message from Dr. Wright in the MetaNet ICU slack channel—in which Dr. Wright can be seen stating, “the IP that I own that is in use within BTC is valued around $252 billion US today.”
As the plaintiff brought their examination of Dr. Wright to a close, they briefly introduced evidence that implied Dr. Wright and Dave Kleiman worked on Bitcoin together. Then, they emphasized the idea that Dr. Wright is a multi-billionaire because of Bitcoin.
Dr. Wright insisted that it is his wife that is a multi-billionaire since she owns the companies that have assets worth billions of dollars. Dr. Wright explained that he is merely the beneficiary in these deals.
The final piece of evidence the plaintiffs produced in their examination of Dr. Wright was a message from the MetaNet ICU slack channel, in which Dr. Wright stated:
“I am a multi-billionaire.”
The plaintiffs ended their examination on that note and the defendants chose not to cross-examine Dr. Wright.
Did Dr. Wright forge documents?
The plaintiff’s final witness Dr. Matthew Edman was called to the stand after Dr. Wright’s examination concluded. Dr. Edman is a digital forensics investigator who worked with the FBI during their investigation of Silk Road.
“My findings are that many of the documents [from Dr. Wright] were not authentic,” said Edman early on in his testimony.
Dr. Edman was retained by the plaintiff to cast further doubt on the credibility of Dr. Wright and his arguments. Dr. Edman testified that he analyzed several pieces of evidence that were admitted into the court and that he believes some of these documents have been forged by Dr. Wright.
Dr. Edman said the methodology behind his findings involved analyzing metadata, structure, and the content of the document. Dr. Edman said his research showed that the meta data indicated the content of some emails originating from Dr. Wright appear to be altered by Dr. Wright, and that Dave Kleiman’s cryptographic signature was used post-mortem, indicating that someone besides Dave had access to Dave’s PGP private key.
The plaintiffs continued to produce email correspondences, and Dr. Edman explained why he believed those email correspondences were forged—and then about 25 minutes into Dr. Edman’s testimony, the court adjourned for the day.
Conclusion
The plaintiff’s lawyers spent nearly all of their time today try to prove only two points:
- Dr. Wright is not truthful
- Dr. Wright is a multi-billionaire
The first point attempts to help the plaintiff win the jury over and will cast doubt on any future arguments Dr. Wright makes. The second point attempts to persuade the jury that Dr. Wright is wealthy enough to pay Ira Kleiman some percentage of his net worth if the verdict decides he must do that—it may even convince the jury to side with Kleiman since Dr. Wright has such a large sum of money and can afford to take a loss.
Dr. Edman’s testimony was meant to reinforce point number one and show the court that Dr. Wright is not a trustworthy individual.
Dr. Edman will continue his testimony of Tuesday, Day 10 of the Satoshi trial in Florida. When it concludes, the defense will have a chance to cross-examine Dr. Edman and address some of the apparent damaging evidence against Dr. Wright before bringing in their first witness.
At this point, it is unclear how the jury feels about the trial. However, their body language suggests that all of the tech talk, Bitcoin, and blockchain stuff is boring to them. The jury did perk up and engage with Dr. Wright when he would give his long-winded explanations and clarifications, but now that Dr. Wright is off the stand, there is no telling if the topics at hand will keep them interested and engaged throughout the rest of the trial.
CoinGeek features Kurt Wuckert Jr. in recap coverage which will be livestreamed daily at 6:30 p.m. EST on our YouTube Channel.
Watch our Day 9 Special Report from the Kleiman v Wright trial here:
Check out all of the CoinGeek special reports on the Kleiman v Wright YouTube playlist.
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