Wright’s Wife Among Two Others To Be Questioned In Kleiman Lawsuit

By Rishma Banerjee

The Florida court hearing the $10 billion Kleiman vs Wright lawsuit has made a request to the Queen’s Bench Division in London to question Craig Wright’s wife, Ramona Watts and two other UK residents, namely Andrew O’Hagan and Robert MacGregor.

The request was made on July 24 on behalf of Ira Kleiman, the brother of Wright’s deceased partner Dave Kleiman, who alleges Wright stole 1.1 million bitcoin from his brother.

Ramona Watts may be relevant to the case because being the defendant’s wife she was identified in his initial disclosures as “an individual with knowledge of the facts underlying the plaintiff’s’ claims”.

Andrew O’Hagan, the author of the book, “The Satoshi Affair”, was noted as a witness of interest because of a detailed recount in his book involving “Wright, his claim to have created bitcoin, and his relationship with Kleiman”. The legal filings say that during the six-month process of interviewing Wright for his book:

“Recorded ‘many hours of tape’ of his ‘many dozens of hours of conversations with Wright’ where they discussed information relevant to the lawsuit”.

Finally, Robert MacGregor, one of Wright’s business associates was mentioned in the document as:
“Mr MacGregor was privy to details surrounding bitcoin’s creation, the alleged Satoshi Nakamoto partnership, and the trusts at the heart of the dispute in this case.”

The most significant part of the case, is, however, the “Tulip Trusts”; two funds that were the destination of the bulk of bitcoins stockpiled by Wright and Dave Kleiman between 2009 and 2013.

Only seven trustees, including Wright and Kleiman, held encrypted keys, and were “managed by at least three people but not more than seven at any time”.

Wright, who will be appearing in the Florida court on August 7, accepted not having access to all the requisite keys to obtain the funds, but asserted that the entire 1.1 million bitcoins – valued at more than $10 billion at current prices – “will be returned” to him on January 1, 2020.