Satoshi Pretender Craig Wright Dodges Two-Year Jail Sentence

“It’s rare for someone, having been ordered not to file legal proceedings, to do exactly that in the same court that issued the prohibition,” legal counsel for COPA Tristan Sherliker with Bird & Bird told Decrypt in an interview. “By filing the new claim, Craig Wright breached the court’s order, which specifically barred him from pursuing further court proceedings based on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto or his ownership of related intellectual property.” In an email to the court, Wright had argued that attending the hearing would have been a financial burden to him and that he was in Asia “for work purposes.”

COPA offered to fly him to the contempt hearing in economy class. Since 2021, Wright has been embroiled in a legal battle with COPA, a Jack Dorsey-backed organization, and a group of Bitcoin Core developers. According to Sherliker, Judge Mellor said that the suspended sentence was intended to dissuade Wright from committing further breaches of the order and ensure compliance with the original ruling.

“We have an indication that Craig Wright has chosen exile,” Sherliker said. “The judge recognized that this meant that if he were to impose a custodial sentence, it probably wouldn’t be carried out directly and he imposed a suspended sentence, the effect of which is that if there’s any further improper behavior, the one-year jail sentence will be imposed on Dr Wright.”

Wright’s attorneys did not respond to Decrypt’s request for comment. Sherliker believes today’s ruling is the final nail in Craig Wright’s saga of claiming to have created Bitcoin. “It should have been the end back at the beginning of the year in March when his claim was entirely dismissed,” the attorney said. “The whole world can see after that he was not Satoshi.”