Craig Wright has been given a two-year suspended prison sentence by a UK judge after he was found guilty of criminal contempt of court following accusations from the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA).

Wright was found guilty of criminal contempt of court on five separate grounds and will be arrested and imprisoned if he commits another offense in the UK. He has also been ordered to pay £144,000 ($180,000) to cover COPA’s legal costs.

Wright attended today’s hearing virtually and claimed that he would appeal the verdict. 

Today’s decision followed yesterday’s hearing where lawyers representing COPA argued that he had breached his injunctions on multiple occasions after filing a lawsuit against Jack Dorsey’s Square Up and BTC Core. 

Read more: Craig Wright skips UK court hearing, COPA wants him in prison

Wright also failed to attend yesterday’s hearing in person, despite orders from Judge Mr. Justice Mellor, potentially committing another act of contempt of court.

Mellor said today that Wright relied on “promissory estoppel,” to avoid attendance and that he found “each ground for contempt proved beyond all reasonable doubt.”

The judge concluded that, “[Wright] has expressed no remorse today,” and that “promissory estoppel is legal nonsense.” In his decision, he also struck out Wright’s new claim.

Describing the scale of Wright’s legal misdeeds, COPA’s legal representative, Jonathan Hough, claimed “Wright has found himself in contempt of court in three continents over two decades.” The hearing was again shared live by BitMEX Research, patent attorney David Pearce, and Bitnorbert. 

Read more: Craig Wright COPA appeal rejected by UK court as meritless

Earlier this year, Wright was referred to the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) over his potential perjury. At the time, the UK courts struggled to identify where he’d gone after leaving the UK.  

When the judge asked what country Wright is currently in, he replied “Asia” — a continent. Mellor then noted that Wright “can avoid the consequences by continuing to base himself in Thailand.” He added, “Wright appears to be well aware of countries without extradition arrangements.”

Hours before yesterday’s hearing, Wright claimed that he couldn’t attend as he couldn’t afford the means to travel. COPA offered to cover these costs but Wright said that it would cost £240,000, including the losses to his business.

Throughout the case, Wright has chosen to represent himself. He has previously been caught citing non-existent legal cases through his use of ChatGPT. 

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Craig Wright said he won’t be attending his contempt of court hearing in London today, citing a “lack of means for travel.” As a result, he will likely be found in contempt and face possible arrest and prison.

There was much speculation about whether Wright would show up at the London Royal Courts of Justice to face the hearing brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA). Last November, Mr. Justice Mellor ordered Wright to attend in person after deciding his arguments against attending carried “no justification.”

He said, “It is difficult to avoid the conclusion invited by COPA which was that his real motivation is a wish to avoid the consequences of his contempt (if proved).”  

Read more: COPA says Craig Wright used ChatGPT to write court submissions

Wright tried to argue that his autism and Christmas plans, among other things, should prevent him from attending.

COPA argues that Wright has breached his court injunctions after he filed a lawsuit against Jack Dorsey’s Square Up and BTC Core claiming £900 billion in damages.

Today’s High Court hearing was recorded by BitMEX Research, Bitnorbert, and patent attorney David Pearce. COPA reportedly offered to cover the costs of Wright’s travel. However, Wright, who now also dabbles in casino design, rejected the offer, reportedly asking for as much as £240,000.

According to Wright, this sum reflected the loss of business opportunities due to “COPA’s actions.”

COPA’s legal representative, Jonathan Hough, instructed by Bird & Bird, claimed, “Wright is voluntarily absenting himself to avoid consequences.” Hough later recommended that Wright should receive a custodial sentence of two years.

Judge Mellor has told COPA to invite Wright to a sentencing hearing tomorrow, which he can attend remotely, where a judgment will be handed down.

Update December 18, 12:49 UTC: Included Judge Mellor’s decision to hand down a judgment on Thursday.

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Craig Wright’s appeal application in his case against the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) was rejected by a UK court today, described as a baseless argument with “no prospect of success.”

Court of Appeal judge Lord Justice Arnold wrote that the motion was refused “as being totally without merit.”

Wright filed multiple appeals after he was found to undoubtedly not be Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, during legal proceedings against COPA earlier this year. 

As reported by BitMex Research, Craig Wright’s appeal attempted to paint the judge as biased. However, today the court ruled “no credible allegation of either actual basis or apparent bias is made by Dr Wright, but only a series of disagreements with the judge’s reasoning.”

“In fact the judge leant over backwards to ensure that Dr Wright received a fair trial,” the ruling said.

Read more: Craig Wright ordered back to UK for COPA contempt of court hearing

Wright’s reliance on ChatGPT was also noted. It said that instances of his appeal and argument contained, “multiple falsehoods, including reliance upon fictitious authorities […] which appear to be AI-generated hallucinations.”

Craig Wright is scheduled to face a contempt of court hearing on December 18 after COPA countered his £900 billion ($1.14 trillion) claim against Jack Dorsey’s Square and BTC Core. If found guilty, Wright may be arrested and sentenced to up to two years in prison.  

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A judge has ordered Craig Wright to return to the UK to face a contempt of court hearing after the Australian entrepreneur failed to argue that his autism and plans for Christmas should prevent him from appearing in person.

Patent attorney David Pearce attended the hearing today and documented Wright and Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) legal representative Jonathan Hough’s arguments for and against his attendance.

Today, COPA called Wright’s arguments “not remotely convincing,” and claimed, “wanting to spend Christmas in Indonesia is not a reason that should carry any weight.”

It also argued that Wright’s £900 billion claim would have to have, “very strong grounds against attendance in person.” Wright was also accused of “expert shopping” his autism expert, Dr. Kiln, and noted that Kiln never suggested he should give evidence remotely during previous trials. 

Read more: Craig Wright lawsuit made 184 ‘twisted and incoherent’ claims, say analysts

Wright previously argued that his autism should prevent him from attending in person and that the proposed timings weren’t ideal given his intended Christmas schedule.

Today, attending virtually, he claimed he has received social media abuse and that he needed two “ex-secret service” bodyguards to observe him over fears he was being followed.

Wright’s evidence also argued that the judge, overseeing today’s session, Mr. Justice Mellor, was affiliated with David Pearce. Mellor, however, shot down this allegation, noting that he’d only met him twice at official events. Mellor stated, “I reject in no uncertain terms any allegations of bias.”

COPA accused Wright of contempt of court earlier this month and claimed he breached his court injunctions when Wright filed a lawsuit against Jack Dorsey’s Square Up and BTC Core. 

Mellor ultimately rejected the argument supported by Wright’s expert and instead, admitted the evidence of another doctor who decided that Wright’s attempted remote attendance wasn’t justified.

The hearing is now scheduled to take place in person on December 18. 

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An amended appeal notice submitted by Craig Wright and released last Friday by lawyers working for the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) allegedly contains ChatGPT “hallucinations” and fake AI-generated Bitcoin code.

The documents were shared by Bird & Bird on behalf of COPA, which has accused Wright of contempt of court. In a claim filed last week, the alliance said that Wright breached an injunction when he removed an online notice and launched his lawsuit against Jack Dorsey’s Square Up and BTC Core.

According to the affidavit, “Since Dr. Wright began corresponding on his own behalf, it struck us early on that his documents appeared to be written in the style of ChatGPT.”

“On one occasion when corresponding with the Court, he appeared to accidentally copy and paste not only the output from ChatGPT, but also the prompt that he had submitted,” Bird & Bird added.

Mark Hunter, co-presenter of the Dr Bitcoin podcast, has shared a screenshot showcasing one such email with ChatGPT text included.

Read more: Craig Wright says autism and Christmas plans should keep him out of court

Additionally, 16 links to various CoinDesk, The Block, Bitmex research, and other articles that have been cited as evidence within Wright’s appeal were broken and apparently made up.

Reddit user StealthyExcellent claims to have assessed Wright’s appeal, noting, “These are not just broken links. They appear to be made up completely by Craig, or most likely hallucinated by Craig’s ChatGPT bot.”

Wright also seemingly used ChatGPT to write fake Bitcoin code and make up extra lines of code within his appeal.

Lawyers representing COPA previously claimed that Wright had used ChatGPT to forge documents during his high court case “due to the pressure of time.” They also found evidence of ChatGPT’s use in documents that were dated before the creation of the AI software. 

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Craig Wright argued that his high-level autism and Christmas schedule should prevent him from attending a December court session after he was accused of contempt of court in a legal application filed today by COPA. 

BitMEX Research covered the hearing where Bird and Bird filed its claim on behalf of the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA). The law firm argued that Wright has breached his injunction after he removed an online notice and launched his lawsuit against Jack Dorsey’s Square Up and BTC Core. 

On top of this, COPA wants to stay Wright’s lawsuit, halting the relevant court proceedings until the contempt of court filing is settled. 

Read more: Craig Wright files lawsuit against BTC Core and Square without barrister

COPA lawyer Jonathan Hough claimed, “It’s wrong in principle to hide behind a keyboard from a closet in Thailand. [Wright] says he is a UK resident and should be expected to return to the UK for the hearing.”

He added, “[Wright] is seeking to evade the consequences of his actions. He may want to avoid the police or avoid detention.” 

Craig claims autism prevents court appearance

COPA wants Wright to attend the contempt of court hearing in person but Wright argues that his high-level autism won’t allow it. “Look at me now,” he said while streaming from Singapore. “The lighting is set in a certain way. Being able to sit in a courtroom is a different issue, I might have a meltdown and I might not be cognitively able.” 

He also claims that he rarely sees his children and that it will be difficult for him to attend the hearing while his family is in Singapore in December. 

The judge ruled to stay Wright’s lawsuit against Square Up and scheduled a court session to determine if he was in contempt of court for December 18. A November 26 hearing will decide if Wright should attend this hearing in person or not.

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Over 70% of Craig Wright’s 259 claims in his latest UK lawsuit are based on “misunderstandings, blatant misrepresentations, and legally incoherent theories,” according to analysts. 

Specifically, X (formerly Twitter) account CSW Fact Check sifted through Wright’s claims and found that 184 of them don’t stand a chance of succeeding.

Even for the 75 claims that do appear to have a chance, the fact-checkers stated that they are still only “remotely grounded in fact.”

Wright is reportedly applying concepts that are irrelevant to Bitcoin’s decentralized nature and displaying “a fundamental disconnect from legal reality.”

Read more: COPA confirms Craig Wright is desperately trying to appeal

The account said, “At its core, Wright’s case is a misadventure in legal theory, an elaborate distraction veiling his continued bid for control over Bitcoin’s decentralized future.”

Wright filed the High Court lawsuit on October 10 and is representing himself without any legal aid. In the suit, he claims that Bitcoin Core developers have deviated away from Bitcoin’s original vision and that his own cryptocurrency, Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV), is the true Bitcoin. He also wants over $1 billion in damages.  

The High Court already ruled this year that Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto and as a consequence, the Australian businessman was issued various injunctions that both CSW Fact Check and patent attorney David Pearce say have already been breached in his latest lawsuit.  

Craig Wright’s legal chances are ‘basically nil’

Pearce notes that Wright is in contempt of court after claiming ownership of goodwill that exists in the name “Bitcoin.” This offense is punishable by up to two years in prison and may incur fines.

The attorney, however, disagrees with Wright’s analysis of database rights in Bitcoin, and told Protos that this particular issue isn’t important and “most likely will never get tested in court.”

He said that he expects Wright’s latest case to be dismissed, claiming, “This may be solely on the contempt point but there are many other reasons that could come into play too.”

As for Wright’s appeals, he said they will also likely fail as they attempt to overturn findings of fact. “Even if permission is granted, I think the chances of overturning the decision of Mellor J are basically nil,” he said.

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Following the release last week of an HBO documentary naming Peter Todd as Satoshi, renewed speculation around the whereabouts of the Bitcoin creator’s private keys has breathed new life into an old theory involving ex-crime boss Paul LeRoux, and one of the Bitcoin community’s earliest participants, Craig Wright.

As the theory goes, Wright supposedly took computer files containing Satoshi’s private keys from crime boss LeRoux, could not decrypt them, and so enlisted help to attempt to “brute force” the keys.

The theory also states that LeRoux, the leader of a transnational criminal operation involving sophisticated arms and drugs payments, was or knew the creator of Bitcoin. Bitcoin as a pseudonymous, international, and irreversible payment method was eminently useful for his money-laundering and gambling activities.

A brilliant cryptographer in his own right and a perennial top 20 guess for the possible person behind the Satoshi pseudonym, LeRoux supposedly helped secure Satoshi’s private keys using his self-coded encryption technology, E4M.

Eventually, LeRoux’s criminal empire collapsed, and amid the chaos, Wright — who lied about being Satoshi Nakamoto according to the UK High Court of Justice — somehow managed to get his hands on his E4M-based TrueCrypt storage volumes containing Satoshi’s keys.

Read more: Craig Wright posts video from bare closet as he dodges payments

Craig Wright’s court filing cites Paul Le Roux

In response to deposition questions about people that Wright and Dave Kleiman had helped law enforcement apprehend, Wright’s lawyers forgot to redact a citation to LeRoux’s Wikipedia page. This somehow adds credence to the idea that Wright became a government informant who aided in LeRoux’s downfall.

With Le Roux safely offline and serving a 25-year sentence at FCI Fort Dix, a low-security US federal correctional institution, Wright was supposedly now in possession of his encrypted volume containing Satoshi’s private keys. Protected by TrueCrypt’s powerful E4M security and unable to crack the code himself, Wright needed help. 

It was a treasure worth hunting. From 2009 to 2011, Satoshi mined approximately 1.1 million bitcoin. When Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator disappeared, this stash was worth virtually nothing. However, today, that same bitcoin is worth $74 billion.

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Edit 13:05 UTC, Dec 5: Edited piece to remove references to Calvin Ayre and his alleged relationship with Wright and Le Roux.

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Craig Wright appears to be acting as his own legal representation in a newly filed lawsuit against Bitcoin Core and Jack Dorsey’s Square.

As pointed out by Bitmex Research, a UK High Court case tracker shows that Wright filed the lawsuit on October 10 as a ‘litigant in person.’ This would indicate that he is likely filing the lawsuit himself without representation from a solicitor or barrister.

Read more: Did Craig Wright file his latest COPA appeal from China?

While the lawsuit specifically names Bitcoin Core — the software used to distribute bitcoin — and Square Up Europe Ltd. — Jack Dorsey’s payment firm best-known for its contactless card readers — the case tracker doesn’t specify the purpose of the lawsuit.

Wright posted today on X (formerly Twitter) about a lawsuit and legal threat in relation to MicroStrategy, but it’s unclear if this is related to the filing.

The Australian computer scientist is attempting to file three legal appeals in the UK. However, each of them is still waiting for approval. Two of these are directed against the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) and one is aimed at Peter McCormack.

COPA’s legal representation, Bird & Bird, previously told Protos that it is “confident that there is no proper basis for the appeal.”

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Images shared by Craig Wright to his X (formerly Twitter) account appear to back up suggestions by the UK High Court that he could be in China.

On Tuesday, Wright posted pictures depicting a green valley and a bridge in the middle of a gorge. Describing the scene as “absolutely magnificent,” he claimed that the pictures were of an outing with his wife but didn’t reveal any more details. 

However, using Google’s reverse image search, it soon becomes obvious that the image is a photograph of the Tiger Leaping Gorge located on the Jinsha River in the Yunnan province of China.

Wright’s whereabouts have been a mystery since the conclusion of his UK court battle with the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA).

As a result of this case, the High Court approved two injunctions against Wright and referred him to the Crown Prosecution Service to determine if he should be charged with perjury. His assets were also frozen to prevent him from evading court costs.

The elusive Aussie is currently attempting to appeal against podcaster Peter McCormack and COPA and according to the UK Civil Appeal case tracker, he submitted a third appeal on Monday relating to a May 20 court judgment involving COPA. 

During the appeal proceedings, the High Court noted that Wright could be traveling across the UTC +7 time zone which would line up with a potential China trip.

Read more: Craig Wright posts video from bare closet as he dodges payments

It’s worth noting, however, that today’s photos shared by Wright do not confirm his whereabouts. Indeed, he may have posted the images from elsewhere to disguise his real location.

All we can say with any degree of certainty is that he’s been kayaking and has filmed himself inside a closet.

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