Evidence Record

US Federal, Southern District of Florida  ·  2021  ·  Fabrication

Kleiman v. Wright

(S.D. Fla. 2019-2021)

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What happened

W&K Info Defense Research and the estate of David Kleiman brought a claim against Craig Wright asserting a co-ownership interest in Bitcoin mined by Wright and Kleiman together. Wright produced extensive documentation to defeat the claim. Magistrate Judge Reinhart found a "wilful and bad faith pattern" of conduct, including the filing of a false declaration and the knowing production of at least one fraudulent document. Forensic analysis exposed multiple anachronisms: emails purportedly from 2011 bore fonts that were not copyrighted until 2015, and other documents showed metadata inconsistencies that placed their creation after the dates they purported to bear. A sanctions order followed. At trial, the jury found Wright liable for $100 million to the W&K estate. The case, running in parallel with the UK COPA proceedings, illustrates the systemic nature of document fabrication operations where centralised, party-controlled records are the sole evidence of claimed historical facts.

Outcome

Sanctions order. Jury found Wright liable for $100M to the W&K estate.

Sources

Secondary source

Public proof. Private work.

immut records a cryptographic hash of your file on the public XRP Ledger at the moment of creation. The timestamp is independently verifiable by anyone.

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