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Craig Wright, the computer scientist claimed to have lied ‘extensively and repeatedly’ for being the inventor of Bitcoin, was sentenced to a year in prison by a UK judge after being found in contempt of court. The sentence is suspended for two years, meaning Wright will only face prison if he reoffends during that period.
In a hearing on Thursday in the High Court of the United Kingdom, the judge James Edward Mellor ruled that Wright-in bringing a 1.15 trillion dollars in one lawsuit in October against the Bitcoin developers and payment sign Square-had violated an previous court order. The order required Wright to refrain from publicly claiming to be Satoshi Nakamotothe creator of Bitcoin, and take legal action on that basis, among other things.
Representatives for Craig Wright did not immediately respond to a request for comment. At the hearing, it is reported to have said that he will appeal the contempt.
The contempt of court was raised by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a non-profit consortium of crypto companies, which in February. brought Wright to trial in hopes of securing a formal declaration that he is not Satoshi. The goal was to prevent Wright from carrying forward multiple separate processes against Bitcoin developers and other parties, through which he was trying to assert intellectual property rights over Bitcoin – and to ward off any future laws.
On March 14, the last day of the six-week trial, Mellor gave a rare snap verdict: “The evidence is overwhelming,” he told the courtroom. “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 judgement. “I am completely satisfied that Dr. Wright lied to the Court extensively and repeatedly. All his lies and forged documents were in support of his biggest lie: his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.”
At a hearing in July, in addition to imposing various injunctions on Wright, Mellor ordered the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the body responsible for prosecuting criminal cases in the United Kingdom, to consider bringing criminal charges against to Wright for his “gross perjury.” (The CPS has not yet charged Wright with perjury).
