Order to return 500,000 Bitcoin to estate challenged

The self-proclaimed creator of Bitcoin is challenging a recent court order where he was to pay 500,000 Bitcoin back to a former colleague’s estate, according to a recent story on cointelegraph.com

Craig Wright is a computer scientist who says he is the creator of Bitcoin and the man behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. In February 2018, Dave Kleiman’s estate initiated a lawsuit against Wright over the rights to more than $5 million’s worth of Bitcoin, claiming Wright defrauded his former colleague of intellectual property rights and Bitcoins.

Kleiman’s death

Dave Kleiman died in 2013. He worked as a system security analyst in a computer crimes division and at a number of high tech companies before becoming a partner in a computer forensics department. His alleged involvement in the invention of Bitcoin first surfaced in 2015 when documents were sent to the press about Craig Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.

In the latest development, Craig Wright’s attorney Andres Rivero filed a document with the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida asking if he can file a notion that challenges Magistrate Bruce Reinhart’s order in favour of Wright’s ex-colleague’s estate.

Extension to the 24^th

Rivero’s document said that Wright did not concede the magistrate had the power to make the order he did, and that his client’s legal team needed an additional fourteen days to look at the legal validity of the order. The motion challenging the order was due to be heard on 10^th September, whereas this extension moves it to the 24^th.

The legal team cited the recent hurricane as the justification for the extension and that the motion had been brought in good faith rather than to try to delay the order.

The cryptocurrency podcaster Peter McCormack, who has been sued by Wright after accusing him of fraud and claiming incorrectly to be the real inventor of Bitcoin, sent out a Tweet at the end of August betting $10,000 that Wright did not have access to the amount of Bitcoin he has been ordered to pay back.

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