Craig Wright, an Australian scientist who claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin "Satoshi Nakamoto", was sentenced to one year in prison, with a suspended sentence of two years. The reason was that he ignored the ban and continued to impersonate Satoshi Nakamoto to accuse others. The High Court in London sentenced him "Contempt of Court".
Judge James Mellor found that 54-year-old Craig Wright, known as "Satoshi Nakamoto", repeatedly lied about being Satoshi Nakamoto and claimed to own intellectual property rights related to Bitcoin. However, the British High Court found that "Satoshi Satoshi" was not responsible for Bitcoin. His character lies, creates clumsy false claims and documents on a large scale, and uses a bunch of technical vocabulary that is difficult for ordinary people to understand.
In July of this year, the court ordered Craig Wright to stop claiming he is Satoshi Nakamoto, and he could not use this as a 'weapon' to take legal action against others. However, in October of this year, he violated the court order and launched a lawsuit against cryptocurrency developers, claiming over £90 billion ($1.12 trillion) for the Bitcoin intellectual property rights he claims to own.
Jonathan Hough KC, a lawyer for the Coalition of Open Patents for Cryptocurrency (COPA), stated that 'Craig Wright' continues to insist that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. COPA was founded by heavyweights in the cryptocurrency industry, including Block founder Jack Dorsey, leading cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, and Human Rights Watch, and successfully sued Craig Wright for impersonating Satoshi Nakamoto in 2021.
Craig Wright was sentenced on December 19 for five counts of contempt of court, including 12 months imprisonment, which can be suspended for two years, and he must pay £145,000 in costs within two weeks. The court also dismissed Craig Wright's claim for high damages.
Jonathan Hough told the court that Craig Wright's legal threats 'terrified' people, leading developers to go through 'years of personal hell,' and that the new allegations aim to 'maximize pressure.'
He said that Craig Wright's recent legal actions are 'a desperate publicity stunt to captivate his fervent supporters.' He stated that Craig Wright had sought to resist on the grounds of judicial bias and even claimed to be a victim of British nobility due to the presence of the term 'Lord' in the court's ruling against him. The judge found that 'Craig Wright's' contempt actions had been proven to be 'beyond reasonable doubt.'
The 'Craig Wright' participating via video from Asia refused to disclose his location but stated that he would appeal. He refused to comply with the order to appear in person at the hearing on Wednesday, stating that he would not attend unless he could secure £240,000 to cover his attendance costs and lost income.
The courtroom was packed with spectators, and one man wore a T-shirt that read: 'This is a carefully fabricated fictional lie.'
When the High Court ruled in May this year, Judge Mellor stated that Craig Wright described himself as an extremely intelligent person, 'However, in my judgment, he is almost not as intelligent as he thinks he is,' and 'he is an extremely crafty witness.'
The judge said, 'In his written evidence and days of oral evidence during cross-examination, I fully believe that Dr. Wright lied to the court multiple times,' and 'most of his lies were related to the forged documents aimed at supporting his claims. All his lies and forged documents were to support his biggest lie: that he claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto.'
"Ignoring the ban while impersonating Satoshi Nakamoto and suing for $1.12 trillion! 'Craig Wright' sentenced to 1 year in prison, suspended." This article was first published on (Blockbeat).