Craig Wright, the A computer scientist who has ruled he lied “extensively and repeatedly” about being the inventor of Bitcoin has been given a one-year prison sentence by a British judge after being found in contempt of court. The sentence will be suspended for two years, meaning Wright will only face jail time if he reoffends during that period.
During a hearing Thursday in the British Supreme Court, Judge James Edward Mellor ruled that Wright — by filing a $1.15 trillion lawsuit against Bitcoin developers and payments company Square in October — had violated an earlier court order. The order required Wright to, among other things, refrain from publicly claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, and taking legal action on that basis.
Craig Wright could not be reached for comment. During the hearing, he reportedly said he would appeal the contempt finding.
The contempt of court case was raised by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a nonprofit consortium of crypto companies, which sued Wright in February in hopes of obtaining a formal declaration that he is not Satoshi. The goal was to prevent Wright from filing multiple separate lawsuits against Bitcoin developers and other parties, attempting to assert intellectual property rights to Bitcoin – and fend off future lawsuits.
On March 14, the final day of the six-week trial, Mellor made a rare, swift ruling: “The evidence is overwhelming,” he said in court. “Dr. Wright is not the person who adopted or operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.”
“It is clear that Dr. Wright engaged in the deliberate production of false documents to support false claims and use the courts as a vehicle for fraud,” Mellor wrote in his judgment. “I am completely convinced that Dr. Wright lied extensively and repeatedly to the Court. All his lies and forged documents supported his biggest lie: his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.”
At a hearing in July, in addition to imposing the various court orders on Wright, Mellor also ordered the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the body responsible for prosecuting criminal cases in Britain, to consider pursuing criminal charges in against Wright for his 'wholesale perjury'. (The CPS has not yet charged Wright with perjury.)
