Judge Denies Dismissal Request on $4 Billion Lawsuit Against Craig Wright

A US federal court has recently dismissed a request made by self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto Craig Wright that attempted to dismiss a lawsuit that alleges he misappropriated about $4 billion worth of the flagship cryptocurrency, bitcoin.

According to court document brought forth by CoinDesk, Wright is being sued by Ira Kleiman, on behalf of the estate of his brother and Wright’s former partner, Dave Kleiman. Kleiman was a forensic computer investigator who passed away in 2013, over a battle with MRSA.

The document shows Wright is being accused of scheming to seize bitcoins belonging to Dave Kleiman, as well as rights to intellectual property associated with the flagship cryptocurrency. When it came to court in February, the case saw Kleiman allege Wright stole 1.1 million BTC, worth nearly $4 billion at press time from Dave after he passed away.

Supposedly, Wright contacted Dave’s estate to help dispose of the fortune in crypto. While he allegedly did so, he is said not to have returned the funds. Back in April of this year, Wright filed a motion to dismiss the case, but the court ended up denying most of the counts in it. The document reads:

The Amended Complaint alleges that Defendant converted at least 300,000 bitcoins upon Dave’s death and transferred them to various international trusts, which was an unauthorized act that deprived the Plaintiffs of the bitcoins therein. Accordingly, Plaintiffs’ claim for conversion … survives Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss.

The document further notes, according to CoinDesk, that the exact number of bitcoin involved in the case is still being determined, although the estate contends it’s entitled to “at least 300,000” BTC, as well as forks that resulted from them.

While the court dismissed most of the counts in Wright’s motion, the move succeeded in invalidating claims over “trade secrets,” which were determined as not valid given the three-year statute of limitations in Florida had been exceeded.

Wright has notably since stopped supporting bitcoin or bitcoin cash (BCH), a fork of the flagship cryptocurrency created in August of last year. During this year’s November 15 hard fork, the self-proclaimed bitcoin creator started supporting Bitcoin Cash Satoshi’s Vision (BSV).