How They Framed Lawyer Kyle Roche
And how Craig Wright (who owes $143 million to W&K) is trying to take advantage. Was it all a set up?
Written by Arthur van Pelt
ABOUT EDITS to this article: as more material might become available in the period following publication, this article might have edits and updates every now and then. In that sense, this article can be considered a work in progress, to become a reference piece for years to come.
Within the Bitcoin community rumors and suggestions are circulating that after lawyer Kyle Roche was framed using illegal recordings made in January 2022(1), that the whole process, including the sudden appearance of Christen Ager-Hanssen — who was present at these recordings — in November 2022 as the new CEO of nChain, has been carefully staged by camp Calvin Ayre/Craig Wright, only to try disrupt the Kleiman v Wright lawsuit, or better, its debt collection process from judgement debtor Craig Wright by lawsuit winner W&K Info Defence Research, LLC (W&K from now onward), with all means possible.
(1) “Since videos of them were anonymously posted online in August, Roche has lost his role as a lead attorney in potentially law-defining cases, exited the firm he founded and retreated from public view. How it happened offers a window into what can be the cutthroat nature of a fledgling trillion-dollar industry, one whose volatility has engendered a flood of lawsuits, courtroom skirmishes, and, in this case, an apparent elaborate scheme to take down a lawyer.” — Bloomberg Law
First, let’s have a look at the facts as they have appeared to us on a somewhat superficial level. Christen Ager-Hanssen, initially an Algorand(2) fan for a short while, but who quickly started to root for Craig Wright’s brainchild BSV(3) was, as said, the person involved with the secret recordings of lawyer Kyle Roche. And Kyle Roche, who co-founded law firm Roche Freedman with Vel Freedman, happens to have been involved — from the sidelines mostly, but still — with the Kleiman v Wright lawsuit that ran from February 2018 till December 2021, when Craig Wright heard the trial jury in Miami, USA tell him he had to pay $100,000,000 to Dave Kleiman’s company W&K for fraudulent and illegal Conversion. And a few months later, another stunning (rounded) $43,000,000 was added to this already mindblowing amount in pre-judgment interest.
(2) Irrelevant altcoin, #42 on the CoinGecko market cap list at the moment of writing
(3) Another, even more irrelevant, altcoin, which is a November 2018 knockoff of Bitcoin’s August 2017 minority fork BCH, currently hovering around #77 on the CoinGecko market cap list
As we speak, what we see happen in the recently started Kleiman v Wright judgment debt collection process, is an almost out of control spiral in which Craig Wright, his counsel(s), his wife and his ex-wife, are desperately trying to avoid that:
- Vel Freedman et al remain counsel for Ira Kleiman, and that
- Craig Wright has to pay a single penny of this debt
So indeed, it appears that we have all the components lined up for a juicy conspiracy theory. But is there any merit to this conspiracy theory? Let’s find out. The facts of the matter in a quick ’n’ dirty but still detailed — when the reader kindly follows the numerous links provided — diary, which is, if you ask me, at all times worthy of a Netflix episode in the Dirty Money series!
Who’s Christen Ager-Hanssen anyway?
To be fair, I had never heard of Christen Ager-Hanssen before. Never. I interacted with him on Twitter for a bit when he said he would create a research report about Craig Wright (so I reminded him of my work on Medium here, after which he immediately blocked me) and a bit later I found this tweet of him pretty funny:
Because meanwhile BSV has tanked over 30 positions on the market cap lists to its current position of 75, and its price is hovering around $33 at the moment of writing.
But since Christen Ager-Hanssen appears to play a key role in this chapter of the Faketoshi saga, let’s try to find out if his profile fits a conspiracy theory of the kind just described, before we dive into the events happening between November 2021 and today (April 2023).
“Christen Eugen Ager-Hanssen (born July 29, 1962) is a Norwegian internet entrepreneur & venture capitalist. Since the late 1990s, he has been based in London and is a highly controversial private equity professional (emphasis mine). Ager-Hanssen was involved in several high-profile M&A deals and has become known for public hostile takeovers. In a Canadian Business cover story, he was described as both Gordon Gekko and a modern-day Viking. In 1999 he became one of Norway’s richest citizens. He was reported to be worth over $2.5 billion in 2005.
Ager-Hanssen has also been recognized for his expertise in the Internet. His work to commercialize the Internet in the 1990s included early experiments with search engines, internet infrastructure such as satellite internet access, legal music distribution, banking and financial services, e-mail advertising, banner ads, and pay-per-click advertising. He invests in potential unicorns and media companies through his investment vehicle, Custos, and is the owner of the biggest newspaper in Sweden, the Metro.” — Wikipedia
On Wikipedia we find the first hint that Christen is considered “highly controversial”. However, Wikipedia keeps it pretty superficial in the rest of their description of Ager-Hanssen.
For example, the section about ‘FlyMe Europe’ is missing a few juicy details about Christen. FlyMe is a low-cost carrier based in Gothenburg that aimed to be one of the leading low-cost carriers in Europe in the early 2000s, and where Ager-Hanssen and business friends obtained a controlling stake in 2005. FlyMe went bankrupt in March 2007, however, and Ager-Hanssen was accused of financial malversations that could have ended up in 6 years imprisonment when the proscecutor had it his way. A (translated) quote from the Norwegian magazine E24 who published an article called “FLYME-HAVARIET: Norsk eks-milliardær tiltalt i svensk fly-flopp” on February 24, 2010:
“It is former chairman of the board Björn Olegård, former board member and lawyer Staffan Edh, former managing director Finn Thaulow and the Norwegian financier Christen Ager-Hanssen who are being prosecuted by a Swedish’ response to the socalled Økocrim — the Ekobrottsmyndigheten.
Risks 6 years in prison
According to the indictment, the three Swedish defendants abused their position in Flyme Europe AB to buy shares in the company River Don Ltd. Furthermore, they must have approved payments from the company of at least 40 million Swedish kroner without there being any commercial justification or the company receiving services in return.
- Furthermore, Christen Ager-Hanssen, as chairman of the main owner of Flyme Europe AB, has, to the detriment of the company, abused his position by approving the aforementioned payment and the agreement on which the payment was based at the general meeting on 28 February 2007, without there being commercial reasons for the transaction/agreement, and without the company receiving consideration or satisfactory security for the transaction, the indictment states.
The Swedish public prosecutor believes that the case is particularly serious due to the size of the amount and the fact that the management of the company has not recorded the transactions in the company’s accounts. The defendants now risk a prison sentence of 6 years. The public prosecutor has also filed a petition for a business ban for the four defendants.”
In a September 28, 2000 Akersposten article we can find the following quote about our Christen:
“He is an entrepreneur with big visions, but [also] with big problems in distinguishing between fantasy and reality, is Gustavsen’s characteristic of Christen Ager-Hanssen.”
The Sunday Times, in a 2017 article called “Bankrupt past of activist Christen Ager-Hanssen laying siege to Johnston Press”, tells us:
“The Norwegian raider plotting a boardroom putsch at the owner of newspaper The Scotsman was declared bankrupt in Sweden more than a decade ago over an unpaid £1.5m tax bill.
Christen Ager-Hanssen, who has built up a 12.6% stake in publisher Johnston Press, has been in a dispute with the Swedish taxman for nearly 20 years. In 2005 a court ruled him insolvent, but the tax authorities continue to pursue the businessman.”
Chief Business Correspondent Christopher Williams of Telegraph UK describes in his October 28, 2017 piece called “Norway’s former dotcom wonder Christen Ager-Hanssen: ‘I want to be the next Murdoch for the new age of newspapers’” how that ended:
“FlyMe was a legal battle for 10 years,” says Ager-Hanssen. “It’s a court case they could never win. I won and they paid. They want to settle with me. I said sorry, I will fight you forever.”
The same article also describes how Christen Ager-Hanssen went from a billionaire to a millionaire in about ten years.
“Sweden’s national pension fund had bought into his passion. This was a man who had water-skied on one leg from Norway to Denmark, in the dark, to prove it was possible. In a few years he had become, on paper, one of Scandinavia’s richest men. Questionable reports that he did little to discourage pegged his fortune at £1.9bn. It appeared he could bend the financial universe to his will.
Instead the pension fund ended up in a long line of adversaries who pursued Ager-Hanssen through the courts after the dotcom bubble burst. His fast cars and South Kensington penthouse were seized by creditors. The flat was sold to the actor Hugh Grant. There were even greater indignities to come.
In his attempts to stay afloat Ager-Hanssen had become entangled with a financier named Haakon Korsgaard. They would fight a battle over a decade that Ager-Hanssen says gave him his training in “conflict management”. “I lost it all. He took everything. He ended up paying for it because he went to jail because of what he did.” […] He puts his net worth today at a more modest £50m to £70m.”
“In an interview with Agderposten Helg last Saturday, Ager-Hansen admitted that the value of his company Cognition Ventures had probably dropped by 70 percent since last spring. But now the Swedish pension fund 6. AP-fonden — which owns ten percent of the shares in Cognition Ventures — has completely lost faith in Ager-Hanssen. They have booked their shares in the company at just one krone. In other words, they believe that Cognition Ventures is only worth ten kroner. - It’s bingo lotto. No more. That says what we think about Ager-Hanssen, says director of the 6th AP-fonden, Erling Gustavsen, to Göteborgsposten.” — Akersposten’s “Ager-Hanssen worth NOK 10”
Back to Telegraph UK. They also found an individual called Thomas (Tom) Watson willing to spit a few juicy quotes about Christen Ager-Hanssen.
“Some witnesses to the excesses of Cognition disagree. Tom Watson, a Canadian who Ager-Hanssen had brought on board as public relations chief, came to view the young entrepreneur as a Gordon Gekko figure, a “monumental egomaniac” with a “forked silver tongue”. His view has not softened. “I was a journalist before working with Ager-Hanssen,” says Watson, who now edits Ivey Business Journal. “And after having the great displeasure of unwittingly trying to ethically lead investor relations for the London-based venture Ager-Hanssen aggressively hyped during the dotbomb era, I returned to journalism and focused on white-collar crime. That was a decade ago, but I have yet to come across anyone else in business that I consider equally full of s — -.””
And it appears that Tom Watson might be considered the Arch Nemesis of Christen Ager-Hanssen. Just using good old Google and we can find even more critical articles about Christen. From 2017:
“Norwegian Christen Ager-Hanssen, with a string of spectacular business failures and a Trumpian fondness for fibbing, has made a hostile bid for Britain’s Johnston Press. […] Seeing other people as mindless “jellyfish” drifting wherever emotion takes them, the Norwegian has long practised the art of emotional manipulation on journalists looking for a good story, movers-and-shakers seeking greater glory, and investors hoping for a knight in shining armour. […] The firm — which Ager-Hanssen runs out of a private-members club in London — bills itself as a technological trailblazer. And yet, its website is unsecured and has a blank portfolio page. “It looks like it was made by a teen with zero design or branding acumen,” said a tech specialist, who declined to be named after reviewing the site for this story. “I originally thought it was a scam.” […] According to one British reporter who recently raised Ager-Hanssen’s name with Swedish pension officials, the response was “apocalyptic.” No surprise there. Nobody likes reliving a run-in with Scandinavia’s Night King.” — Thomas (Tom) Watson in “‘I’m a street fighter’: Notorious one-time Open Text pursuer sets sights on media empire” on Financial Post
And from 2019:
“If you need to make a Game of Thrones comparison, Ager-Hanssen isn’t anything like the heroic Jon Snow — he is the Night King, the destructive leader of brain-dead zombies. […] Furthermore, while making life difficult for the leadership of Johnston Press, Ager-Hanssen was being pursued by tax authorities in Scandinavia, where he has a reputation for being a modern-day Viking linked to a string of business failures, including one that cost Sweden’s pension system a historic loss during the dot-com boom. As one local journalist put it, he’s widely seen as “a kind of hostile takeover guy who happily drains company resources to line his own pockets.”” — Thomas (Tom) Watson in “Fighting Shareholder Populism” on Ivey Business Journal
But is Tom Watson alone in his unfriendly description of Christen Ager-Hanssen? I’m afraid not. On Complaints Board we find a few people also being very explicit, as in very negative, about him.
“Christen Ager-Hanssen review: bullying, harassment and fraud
Christen Ager-Hanssen is an aggressive, violent and hostile human being. He is a failed businessman, who had an internet business in the 90s that went bankrupt after he cheated all his investors. He later stole money from the national pension fund of Sweden for another business in internet which all led to bankruptcy. He is a cheat, a fraudster and best thing to do from my experience is stay away. I feel bad from my friends at Johnston press, where I had worked his involvement their is unhelpful to say the very least. He is corrupt and uses people. He is a bully and harasses people at the work place. Christen Ager-Hanssen is a vile human being!
He is a piece of sh-t in his personal life too. He cheats on his long time Norwegian girlfriend Jenny with a Swedish gold digger named Caroline Häller, with whom he has a kid.
He is a cheat and bankrupt and has history of cheating and stealing.”
Perhaps the most interesting quotes about Ager-Hanssen can be found in an October 12, 2018 article called “Christen Ager-Hanssen” on Manuela Sedea’s blog called Fokus. Translated from Swedish, they read:
“The two media owners had made a rather special journey — just a few years earlier they barely knew each other. After a Christmas trip to the Maldives in 2013, during which Christen Ager-Hanssen read a book about the HQ crash, he contacted Mats Qviberg and Christer Sandberg, who represented HQ AB, the bank’s former owner company that sued Qviberg, among others, with claims for damages. Ager-Hanssen saw an opportunity to make money — he also had personal experience of tricky legal processes. In return for a commission, he offered both parties to negotiate a settlement. He soon realized that the potential was greater than that and chose to ally himself with Qviberg, who was involved in a criminal case as well as a civil case in which the damages claims were about 5 billion plus interest. The processes, which fed into each other, had already been going on for several years.” (emphasis mine)
“Christen Ager-Hanssen does not want to talk about his own family, for security reasons. The opponents are many, especially as he likes to use unconventional business methods and does not advise legal processes; in which he uses hidden recording equipment to collect material or sends out women with the task of initiating relationships with a target. He calls it the art of social engineering and if it reminds one of spies, it’s no wonder; until recently he was a partner in a business intelligence company populated by former intelligence officers from the CIA, Mossad and MI6.” (emphasis mine)
To cut a long story short, what the reader will see happen next is an individual joining the BSV community who is described in public by a plethora of people as:
- highly controversial,
- risked jailtime, but escaped this so far by endlessly going to court,
- lost almost all his money until insolvency and bankruptcy,
- had all his assets seized,
- a monumental egomaniac with a forked silver tongue,
- an aggressive, violent and hostile human being,
- big problems in distinguishing between fantasy and reality
- a failed businessman,
- a cheat, a fraudster, a bully, a corrupt piece of shit, a social engineer,
- has experience with tricky legal processes and earning commissions with them,
- used unconventional business methods like using hidden recording equipment and sending out women with the task of initiating relationships with a target,
- who employed former CIA, Mossad and MI6 intelligence officers
It is fair to say that birds of a feather flock together, right? So to me at least, it is perfectly clear that Christen Ager-Hanssen fits the BSV community — especially the people at the helm — nicely.
But did Christen also use his extensive skill set and experience to (help) set up a “carefully staged process to try disrupt the Kleiman v Wright lawsuit, or better, its debt collection process from judgement debtor Craig Wright by lawsuit winner W&K, with all means possible” as I called it earlier?
Let’s find out.
November 2021:
From an October 31, 2022 Bloomberg Law article by reporter Justin Wise called “Crypto, Cash and Spies: Secret Videos Sink Legal Rising Star” we learn that the roots of this story go back to November 2021.
“The Norwegian businessman [Christen Ager-Hanssen is meant here] said he had never before met the consultant, who identified himself as Mauricio Andres Villavicencio de Aguilar. According to emails shared with Bloomberg Law, the consultant had first contacted Ager-Hanssen in November 2021 about coordinating a potential investment opportunity in the blockchain arena.”
Could this be a Christen Ager-Hanssen sidetrack to cover up for the real reasons behind an upcoming meeting in January 2022? Let’s note that the trial in Miami, Florida of the Kleiman v Wright lawsuit started on November the 1st, and lasts the whole month of November 2021. CoinDesk reports on November 2, 2021 in an article called “Kleiman v. Wright: Bitcoin’s Trial of the Century Kicks Off in Miami”:
“MIAMI — The civil trial Ira Kleiman vs. Craig Wright kicked off here Monday and it may provide insight into some of Craig Wright’s claims that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin.
Wright, an Australian computer scientist and early cryptocurrency pioneer, has been claiming to be the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin since 2016. This lawsuit posits that Wright did not act alone. According to Ira Kleiman, his late brother David — a fellow computer expert and longtime friend of Wright’s — was the co-creator of Bitcoin and is entitled to a share of a trove of bitcoin currently valued at $66 billion.
The suit alleges that David Kleiman and Wright formed a partnership and established an entity called W&K Info Defense Research, LLC, that they used to mine bitcoin and organize their intellectual property, including the Bitcoin source code.”
Of course, the majority of my readers will know that this otherwise very interesting lawsuit had the wrong ground premise — from both sides — from the get go: that Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto however, so at times this case had its utterly cringe moments, but after all the Jury figured out what was real, and what was not real in the case when it came to the question of and in what sense defendant Craig Wright had been defrauding plaintiffs Ira Kleiman and/or his late brother Dave Kleiman’s company W&K.
December 7, 2021:
Craig Wright loses the Kleiman v Wright lawsuit against W&K bigly, when Judge Bloom enters the Jury judgment in favor of plaintiff W&K. In line with the Jury’s verdict, Craig is penalized for a whopping $100,000,000.00 wrapped up under the appropriate moniker “Conversion”. Appropriate, because Craig is being punished for the only real fraud (happening in the second half of 2013, and totally unrelated to Craig Wright’s false claim to be Satoshi that he only started to drop in the year after) against plaintiffs that the Jury could find in the, at times, convoluted lawsuit.
More detailed information in my prize winning December 10, 2021 article “Craig Wright Ordered to Pay $100 Million in Kleiman v Wright Lawsuit”.
January 27, 2022:
On this date, seven and a half weeks after Craig Wright’s devastating loss in the Kleiman v Wright lawsuit, Kyle Roche meets up in person with Christen Ager-Hanssen and, apparently, consultant Mauricio Andres Villavicencio de Aguilar in London, and the meeting, partly in an office setting and partly in a restaurant setting, is secretly being recorded in part or in whole. We learn the exact date and place of the meeting in London from one of the numerous court filings later in 2022 and 2023, when it will become clear how these illegal recordings are massively being abused by Craig Wright and his counsel Rivero Mestre.
Further details are provided by Bloomberg Law reporter Justin Wise.
“By the time he arrived in London in January, Kyle Roche was on a roll. Weeks earlier, his firm had scored a $100 million judgment against a self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor, another step to break from the pack of attorneys trying to make their mark in cryptocurrency law. Roche had also landed as a client the blockchain startup Ava Labs, paying him and his partners in digitized tokens worth millions. Now, barely five years out of law school, the young lawyer had come to woo potential investors for a startup venture he said he was working on with Ava Labs. In one restaurant meeting, with the alcohol flowing, the lawyer touted himself as a “crazy motherf — er” when it came to court battles. He also boasted about a bold litigation strategy on behalf of Ava Labs — using investor class-action suits to weigh down their competitors. In another private gathering that day, he crowed: “Because I sue half the companies in this space, I know where this market is going.” What he didn’t know: His comments were being recorded.
[…]
It’s still unclear who was behind the secret recordings or behind Crypto Leaks, the website that posted them. Roche and his former firm, in statements online and in court, have denied wrongdoing and claimed the videos were selectively edited to erase important context. They have asserted the hidden-camera ambush was orchestrated by representatives for a Swiss blockchain firm they had sued just months before the London meetings, though they’ve not offered evidence to substantiate it.
[…]
[Kyle Roche] arrived in London hoping to line up investors for a litigation crowdfunding startup he wanted to develop with Ava Labs. Named Ryval, the venture was intended to allow people to place bets on litigation on Ava’s Avalanche platform.
On a Thursday afternoon, Roche traveled to a three-story townhouse in the city’s upscale Mayfair section that served as the office of Christen Ager-Hanssen, a high-profile venture capitalist who has reportedly made and lost millions in tech and media deals. Ager-Hanssen covered the first-class airfare and hotel costs for Roche and his fiancee, Roche would later say in a declaration submitted in court.
The meeting was arranged by an independent business consultant living in London, Ager-Hanssen said in an interview and a written statement to Bloomberg Law. The Norwegian businessman said he had never before met the consultant, who identified himself as Mauricio Andres Villavicencio de Aguilar. According to emails shared with Bloomberg Law, the consultant had first contacted Ager-Hanssen in November 2021 about coordinating a potential investment opportunity in the blockchain arena.
Ager-Hanssen said he quizzed Roche at his office for a couple hours about Ava Labs and the proposed startup. He said he did not record the meeting, or know who did, but that the video excerpts later released were from the consultant’s vantage at the table. He also said he did not go with Roche to the restaurant that night, but that the consultant did.
Ager-Hanssen said he was intrigued by the Ryval concept, and flew to New York weeks later to continue talking with Roche and Ava Labs executives. By March, however, his interest had waned and he opted not to invest.” — Bloomberg Law
Now I pose the question again, dear reader, is Christen his focus on the Ryval investment a purposeful distraction from what was really going on in the background?
February 14, 2022:
From an August 30, 2022 tweet of Christen Ager-Hanssen we know that he met Kyle Roche on February 14, 2022 again, now in the USA. Was Christen collecting more material for the upcoming video leak and — planned or not — aftermath?
March 9, 2022:
In March of 2022, Craig Wright also loses the prejudgment interest court battle, and claimant W&K is awarded another $43,132,492.48 on top of the December 7, 2021 $100,000,000.00 judgment. In total, Craig Wright now has to pay a little over $143 million to W&K, and meanwhile a post judgment interest ticker is running too, adding around $1,000 per day to this debt.
May 12, 2022:
On this day, the CryptoLeaks.info domain is being registered.
But by who? By someone related to Calvin Ayre, Craig Wright, Stefan Matthews or Christen Ager-Hanssen, or didn’t any of them have anything to do with this?
June 9, 2022:
Crypto Leaks publishes first article “Were attacks on ICP initiated by a master attack — multi-billion dollar price manipulation on FTX?” and second article “How The New York Times promoted a corrupt attack on ICP by Arkham Intelligence” about Dfinity Foundation and Internet Computer (ICP).
Now let’s be honest, dear reader, unless this is a clever distraction again by ‘social engineer’ Christen Ager-Hanssen, but this initial strong focus on Dfinity and especially ICP appears as if the framing of Kyle Roche with illegal recordings is completely unrelated to the set up and main purpose of Crypto Leaks. As a consequence of this line of thinking, Crypto Leaks appears to be more likely a set up from the Dfinity/ICP camp. Agree?
June 14, 2022:
Crypto Leaks announces launch of its new platform. In their press release the focus is completely on the ICP project.
BUT! We can find a hint in the press release stating “The next case is about to come out.” which means that the Kyle Roche video leaks — which will be the next case — is being known and being prepared in the first half of June 2022 already.
Media outlet Benzinga — a ‘pay to publish’ website where Calvin Ayre paid journalists sometimes publish Craig Wright friendly articles, or occassionaly a hit piece against “Arthur Van Pelt, a Dutchman with a serious case of Anti-Wrightis” the undersigned — also publishes the Crypto Leaks press release.
Why is all this important, or in any way relevant, to know? This appears to be relevant, because look what happens next, just one day after the Crypto Leaks press release.
Coincidence, or not coincidence? You tell me…
June 15, 2022:
Christen Ager-Hanssen meets Craig Wright, one day after the Crypto Leaks press release that states “The next case is about to come out.”.
Christen tweets it is the “first time” that he met Craig Wright. Is this true, was this the first time that Christen and Craig had a meet-up? At this moment, we can only guess…
August 26, 2022:
Although announced as early as June 14, 2022, it took the Crypto Leaks website more than 10 weeks to publish their third article “Ava Labs (Avalanche) attacks Solana & cons SEC in evil conspiracy with bought law firm, Roche Freedman” with several hidden camera recordings of lawyer Kyle Roche mingled into the text. Please follow the link in the previous sentence to watch all the clips and snippets, if you like.
A quote from the Crypto Leaks article:
Bloomberg Law reporter Justin Wise once more:
“Crypto Leaks announced itself in June with a website, a Twitter account, and pledges to expose corruption in the fledgling industry. “Follow us to find out what vested interests don’t want you to know,” it said in its inaugural tweet. But Crypto Leaks hid behind its own curtain: Its domain was anonymously registered that May. Its first two posts focused on what it called “attacks” on the Internet Computer blockchain and the once-buzzy ICP token introduced by the Dfinity Foundation, a Swiss nonprofit led by Dominic Wiliams. The digital asset quickly plummeted in value after being sold to retail investors in May 2021.
Neither of the website’s first posts got traction. Then, on Aug. 26, Crypto Leaks released its third so-called “case study”. “Ava Labs (Avalanche) attacks Solana and cons SEC in evil conspiracy with bought law firm, Roche Freedman” blared the headline. The post claimed to reveal “an extraordinary secret pact” between Roche Freedman and Ava Labs “that harms the crypto industry.” It described Roche as a lawyer who used the legal system “gangster style” to attack Ava Labs’ competitors, and pursue “personal vendettas” for the blockchain company’s leader.
Weaved into the text were 25 video clips of Roche speaking in two settings: at the conference table in the Mayfair office that January afternoon and in the bustling restaurant he visited later that night, in front of a plate of food and a wine goblet. Excerpts from both showed Roche explaining his close ties to Ava Labs and his win-or-go-home approach to litigation, and at times disparaging the legal system. In one clip, he reveled in “the fact that 10 idiots control the flow of all the money that happens in American class actions.””
And, just below the middle of the Crypto Leaks article there are two short clips (lasting resp. 24 seconds and 76 seconds) about Craig Wright and his brainchild, affinity fraud token BSV. Crypto Leaks about these two clips:
“Emin’s grandiose sense of his own contributions to blockchain, and an envy of the Satoshi Nakamoto crown, perhaps combined with a disposition towards dark power, then led to him wanting Kyle Roche to pursue Craig Wright, who claims to be part of a small team that invented Bitcoin. Many people fiercely disagree with Craig Wright’s claim, but most people would not secretly attack him through the legal system. Through his attacks on Craig Wright, Kyle Roche boasts how he helped massively devalue the Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) blockchain by billions of dollars. This will be of interest to Craig Wright, and every member of the BSV cryptocurrency community who sustained losses.” (emphasis mine)
To be fair, I’ve watched these clips multiple times, but where CryptoLeaks states that “Kyle Roche helped to massively devalue the BSV blockchain by billions of dollars”, fact is I just can’t find any quote that remotely relates to this analyse. On the contrary, the only moment when “billion(aire)” is mentioned in the clips, it’s about Craig “this guy” Wright who is *NOW* a billionaire!
Well, Craig Wright isn’t a billionaire of course, Craig is actually the most bankrupted Satoshi cosplayer around, who only survives on tens of millions of dollars in loans from Calvin Ayre with the fake Tulip Trust and worthless Craig Wright patents as collateral, but that’s another story for another day.
August 29, 2022:
Kyle Roche posts on Twitter that he had just written “My statement concerning the Crypto Leaks story: My Response”. A quote from his blog post on the Medium platform:
“A posting on the recently launched anonymous Crypto Leaks website about me, my firm, and Ava Labs contains numerous unsourced false statements and illegally obtained, highly edited video clips that are not presented with accurate context. These videos were recorded without my consent during private meetings with Christen Ager-Hanssen, whom I now know works for Dominic Williams, the creator of ICP Token, and the defendant in a high-profile securities fraud litigation my firm brought against him.
Mr. Ager-Hanssen requested a meeting with me under the false pretense of venture capital investment in a technology startup, but his real motives are now clear: to deceive and entrap me. When I agreed to the meeting, I was unaware that Mr. Ager Hanssen specializes in what he calls “conflict management” for “eccentric billionaires” like Mr. Williams where he uses illegal and underhanded means, including “covert recordings” and “social engineering”, to solve their legal issues.”
Emin Gün Sirer did the same, releasing a statement, a few hours later with “My response to the categorically false Crypto Leaks article and lies circulating about Ava Labs and myself: My Statement about the Crypto Leaks lies”. A quote from that statement:
“Neither I, nor anyone else at Ava Labs ever directed Roche in his selection of cases. We do not receive materials or information from him, and we do not entrust our legal affairs to him. Roche himself confirmed this in a public statement. He has only represented Ava Labs in a defensive capacity in a couple run-of-the-mill corporate contract disputes and myself in a libel case. His firm is one of more than a dozen law firms we employ for matters relating to tax, corporate, regulatory, and human resources.”
Note that Kyle Roche is immediately thinking that a certain ‘Dominic Williams, the creator of ICP Token’ or ‘Mr. Williams’ (who is “the defendant in a high-profile securities fraud litigation that Kyle Roche’s firm brought against him”!) is involved with the illegal recordings, and the leaking of them. And indeed, the first two articles on the Crypto Leaks website earlier in June of this year were about… ICP.
So does this currently smell like a set up related to or even organized by camp Craig Wright to help Craig Wright duck and hide from his responsibility to pay $143M to, ultimately, Ira Kleiman? If you ask me, maybe not. But please keep reading, we will nevertheless notice that camp Craig Wright will start to abuse the leaked videos heavily. And Christen Ager-Hanssen is handsomely rewarded for ‘something’ with a CEO position later in the year. Of course, that could be related to his skill set of creating a trail of bankrupt companies, meanwhile in the process turning billionaires into millionaires.
Calvin Ayre, beware.
Meanwhile the undersigned is noticing that he is also being dragged into this Crypto Leaks story by the BSV camp:
It appears that Kurt “Footage that leaked today showed that Roche Freedman was hired specifically to collude against the markets in general and BSV specifically.” (emphasis mine) Wuckert probably has been watching completely different and unrelated videos, because BSV is not being mentioned in this sense at all in the leaked material. Scroll up, and check again, Kurt.
Anyway. Meanwhile, Crypto Leaks keeps on releasing information related to the Kyle Roche video leaks.
And Kurt Wuckert Jr interviews Christen Ager-Hanssen for the first time. In this interview, Christen denies to be involved with Crypto Leaks.
September 1, 2022:
Due to the overwhelming media turmoil, Kyle Roche pulls out of several lawsuits according Decrypt’s article “Crypto Lawyer Kyle Roche Pulls Out of Lawsuits Against Tether, Binance and Others”. A quote from the linked article:
“Kyle Roche wrote on Medium on Monday that the videos were “illegally obtained, highly edited video clips that are not presented with accurate context” and were part of a “deliberate scheme to intoxicate, and then exploit me, using leading questions.””
Again Bloomberg Law reporter Justin Wise:
“The recordings’ release sparked a quick disavowal from Ava Labs’ CEO and statements from leaders across the crypto space — both about what Roche said and whoever recorded it. “Who’s funding all these hit pieces?” tweeted Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges.
Roche quickly denied deploying litigation as a weapon to go after Ava Labs’ competitors and vowed to fight efforts to intimidate him and his firm. But the blowback was intense. In court filings, his firm said he had received “threats of violence” in the days after the recordings were released.
Within days, Roche’s partners announced he was barred from participating in any ongoing class action. They called the move an attempt to protect the firm against appearances of impropriety. That didn’t stifle Roche’s detractors. Lawyers for Bitfinex and Tether, defendants in a class-action suit brought by Roche Freedman, called for the entire firm to be disqualified, claiming the videos raised “grave concerns” about their motivations.
At least four defendants in other cases, including Dfinity, also brought disqualification motions against the law firm, citing Roche’s London comments as a conflict of interest.
At least one of Roche’s clients dropped him. One partner left the firm.
Ava Labs also sought to distance itself. CEO Emin Gun Sirer called the allegations of targeting competitors through litigation “conspiracy theory nonsense” and said Roche made false statements about his work for the company. By mid-September, he publicly declared that Roche no longer represented Ava Labs and that he’d relinquished his shares in the company.
The next month, Roche’s partners fought to keep the firm’s role as lead counsel in the class action against Bitfinex and Tether — a case they had been litigating for three years. They argued they were victims of a scheme by another defendant in a separate case to cripple the firm’s cryptocurrency practice.
New York Judge Katherine Polk Failla was unpersuaded, concluding that Roche’s “uniquely stupid” comments were “too detailed to dismiss” as just being “drunk and stupid.” She said she recognizes the difference between Roche and his partners, but said, “at this point in time, I have concerns about the firm as well.”
Roche, meanwhile, tried to identify his saboteur.
He publicly claimed that Ager-Hanssen had been working for Williams, the Dfinity leader. He offered no evidence to back up the claim, but in a post on the website Medium, Roche cited a 2017 article in The Telegraph [quotes of this article can also be found earlier in this article, in the section dedicated about Christen Ager-Hanssen], a U.K.-based newspaper, that noted Ager-Hanssen helps “eccentric billionaires” facing legal issues and that he has a history of covert recordings.
Last week, Roche’s former partners asserted in a court filing that Ager-Hanssen is a “‘conflict management’ specialist” who was hired by Dfinity to spy on Roche. The filing was made in the firm’s ongoing class action against Dfinity for alleged securities fraud and market manipulation.
“The publicly available evidence establishes” Dfinity is behind the Crypt Leaks site, the firm added, noting that on the same day the Crypto Leaks domain was registered, Dfinity’s CEO had tweeted he was “coming for’’ those who attacked the ICP token. (emphasis mine)
Neither Dfinity nor its outside counsel responded to repeated requests for comment from Bloomberg Law.
In a phone interview, Ager-Hanssen denied Roche’s accusation, claiming he’s never met Williams and that he did not know about the surreptitious recordings. He said he suspected they were arranged by the consultant. He said he has not spoken to the man since the meetings — and can’t be sure Villavicencio de Aguilar wasn’t an alias.
Still, Ager-Hanssen hasn’t shied from the attention, celebrating Roche’s downfall. “Kyle Roche dragged me into this by lying about facts,” he tweeted on Aug. 30, a day after Roche accused him of being behind the recordings.
Bloomberg Law has been unable to reach the consultant or confirm his name and occupation. Emails sent to an address he used with Ager-Hanssen and others were not returned.”
So there you have it, dear reader, the story gets convoluted with CEO Williams of Dfinity/ICP and the consultant called Villavicencio de Aguilar, and this might come across as Ager-Hanssen trying to obfuscate the real reasons for the set up and framing of Kyle Roche. But now watch what happens next.
September 1, 2022:
As far as the undersigned can trace back, it is on this day that Christen Ager-Hanssen pops up on Twitter to start showing his appreciation for altcoin Algorand. Algorand? Yes, Algorand.
Christen deleted his first tweet, but re-entered it:
However, under pressure of the most notorious BSV scammers who jump on him like horny cockroaches, Christen Ager-Hanssen admits ON THE SAME DAY ALREADY that he is aware, and “a big fan” of BSV.
September 2, 2022:
And Christen Ager-Hanssen his career within the BSV community goes fast. Here we see Kurt Wuckert Jr interviewing Christen for the second time.
In this interview we learn a few more details about the illegal recordings.
But, in the sidelines of the interview, we also learn that it appears that Kyle Roche and Vel Freedman do not believe that Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto, if we can believe Christen Ager-Hanssen his interpretation of what he heard (36 minutes into the interview):
“I met Kyle in November in Miami because I was covering the right climate case for which Kyle was the representative of Ira K[leiman] yes and it was very bizarre and I mean the first couple days were roughly as I expected but it was about 30 days of litigation and about halfway through all of a sudden the tone changed and they started to talk about very specifically Kyle and Vel Freedman his partner changed the tone and they were undermining their own case by trying to undermine Craig’s credibility which you know their case is predicated on Craig being Satoshi Nakamoto and therefore suing him for Satoshi’s fortune but then they started to undermine Satoshi which struck me as like man why would they do this undermines their own client, it makes their case seem frivolous and so I was curious, like, are they making money somewhere else and so when this all leaked you know my first thought was, is, hmm I wonder if it’s worth looking at who may have funded them to try to throw these weird curveballs in Miami court against Craig Wright. So it’s a major curiosity for me when I hear he describes it and what happened in that.”
September 11, 2022:
An interesting interaction between Calvin Ayre and Christen Ager-Hanssen.
September 12, 2022:
Another example of Christen Ager-Hanssen showing love for altcoin Algorand.
September 15, 2022:
Christen Ager-Hanssen claims on Twitter to have written a 490 page long (including exhibits) statement regarding Roche Freedman. His tweet is retweeted by Crypto Leaks.
September 19, 2022:
Another example of Christen Ager-Hanssen showing love for the, as said before, pretty much irrelevant altcoin Algorand.
October 3, 2022:
During a hearing in New York, crypto currency exchange Bitfinex and Tether attempt to get lawyer firm Roche Freedman removed from the class action suit against them. The next day, Bloomberg Law reports:
“A New York judge Monday called a Roche Freedman co-founding partner’s leaked comments boasting about his firm’s relationship with a crypto startup “uniquely stupid”. Katherine Polk Failla, a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York, also voiced concerns about the firm’s motivations for filing a class action accusing crypto exchange Bitfinex and affiliate Tether of market manipulation. She said she will decide within a week whether the firm should be booted from representing plaintiffs in the case.”
October 6, 2022:
Craig Wright, now in person, returns to Twitter to take over his account. It was a publicly known ‘secret’ that up till this moment in time Craig his Twitter account was run by others since its inception in February 2022.
Notable fact, Craig quickly deletes his first tweet, a tweet in which he tags Calvin Ayre and, interestingly, Christen Ager-Hanssen.
Another source of information: https://www.reddit.com/r/bsv/comments/y0rm3f/an_interesting_quickly_deleted_tweet_from_craig/
October 13, 2022:
Bitfinex/Tether succeed in getting Roche Freedman booted from the class action against them, as Bloomberg Law reports:
“A New York judge on Thursday removed Roche Freedman from representing plaintiffs in a class action that accuses the crypto exchange Bitfinex and Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, of market manipulation.
The decision is a blow for Roche Freedman after videos posted on a website called Crypto Leaks showed founding partner Kyle Roche boasting about the law firm’s relationship with the crypto startup Ava Labs.
Katherine Polk Failla, a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York, said in a hearing Thursday that the firm’s continued participation in the case could derail litigation. She said she would modify her initial lead counsel appointment to remove the firm.
Allowing the firm to continue serving as counsel “with the metaphorical baggage they now carry is not in the best interests of the class,” Failla said.”
October 19, 2022:
Kyle Roche leaves Roche Freedman.
October 22, 2022:
Christen Ager-Hanssen appears to have been contaminated with ‘The Craig Touch’ meanwhile, and speaks out about Craig Wright being Satoshi Nakamoto, and promises a research report before the end of the year.
November 11, 2022:
From a January 2023 filing we learn that on this day, Craig Wright is requested to fill in Form 1.977.
“On November 11, 2022, W&K asked Wright to complete Form 1.977 within 45 days, but he has refused to do so. […] Form 1.977 is titled “Fact Information Sheet” and is a sworn financial statement.”
Form 1.977 allows the judgment creditor (W&K) to perform a consolidated discovery about the assets and financial situation of judgment debtor Craig Wright. This form helps them understand how to best proceed with the collection of the $143 million plus judgment against Craig.
But, as quoted, Craig Wright does not cooperate and we will find Vel Freedman going to court about the matter in January 2023 with a motion to compel.
November 13, 2022:
Christen Ager-Hanssen is still, or pretends to be, mostly an altcoin Algorand fan, it appears.
November 23, 2022:
Ramona Ang (Craig’s current wife), Lynn Wright (Craig’s ex-wife since 2010) and Craig Wright’s counsel Rivero Mestre join forces to start defraud the US Federal court processes around W&K trying to collect $143 million from Craig Wright.
With the following (utterly fraudulent) document, Lynn & Ramona pretend to be members of W&K (they’re not), they claim to discharge W&K’s current counsels and they request all communication & documentation of the Kleiman v Wright lawsuit.
Meanwhile, Craig Wright’s law firm Rivero Mestre is fully complicit with this “written consent” nonsense.
November 24, 2022:
Suddenly the news breaks that Christen Ager-Hanssen will be the new CEO of “the group holding company of nChain”. His “extensive research” appears to have taken place between November 13, 2022 and November 24, 2022.
Has Christen Ager-Hanssen been rewarded by Calvin Ayre and Craig Wright for his services in previous months with a CEO position? We can only guess at the moment…
November 28, 2022:
Craig Wright’s counsel Rivero Mestre files a “MOTION TO DISQUALIFY
FREEDMAN NORMAND FRIEDLAND LLP AND KYLE ROCHE AND INCORPORATED MEMORANDUM OF LAW” in the Kleiman v Wright lawsuit. The motion kicks off with:
“In a shocking series of extraordinary, recorded statements, Kyle W. Roche (“Roche”), founding partner of Roche Freedman LLP, now renamed to Freedman Normand Friedland LLP (“the Firm”), recently confessed to misusing and abusing the legal system to unlawfully advance the commercial interests of the Firm’s undisclosed principal and benefactor, AVA Labs (“Ava”), by suing Ava’s competitors and notable rivals in the cryptocurrency industry. Those abuses played out in this action, filed by the Firm for plaintiffs Ira Kleiman, as the personal representative of the Estate of David Kleiman, and — ostensibly — on behalf of W&K Info Defense Research, LLC (“W&K”).2 In light of Roche’s admissions of the Firm’s blatant misconduct, the Firm and Roche should be disqualified from any further representation of any party to this action.”
November 29, 2022:
The next day, Judge Beth Bloom rejects the motion already.
“PAPERLESS ORDER denying without prejudice 900 Motion to Disqualify Counsel. The Court lacks jurisdiction to consider Defendant’s Motion because this case is on appeal before the Eleventh Circuit. See In re Mosley, 494 F.3d 1320, 1328 (11th Cir. 2007). Signed by Judge Beth Bloom (aun) (Entered: 11/29/2022)”
December 3, 2022:
And Christen Ager-Hanssen immediately starts showing his love for the affinity fraud of Bcash (BCH) knockoff BSV.
December 4, 2022:
And he explains on Twitter how his flip from Algorand to BSV had happened.
December 12, 2022:
The BSV community is excited about Christen Ager-Hanssen joining the struggle of BSV to remain relevant. At the same time we learn that Christen just wrote his first BSV and Craig Wright friendly monthly newsletter.
December 22, 2022:
Christen Ager-Hanssen’s new role as Group CEO of nChain is being activated on this day. Again, this appointment appears to some as a pretty big reward for his very recent support of the dying BSV affinity fraud token — after being a shortlived Algorand fan up till November 2022 — and his endorsements of cosplaying con man Craig Wright that he apparently only met for the first time in June 2022.
At the same time, Christen also holds Director roles in three other companies in the UK: Bjorn IP Holdings Limited (a recently — October 21, 2022 — incorporated vehicle which only filed a Memorandum and Articles of Association so far), Club Devoted Limited (the “Accounts for a dormant company made up to 31 March 2022” filing of December 15, 2022 shows this is indeed an empty vehicle with only £1,000 in shares) and Martech Capital Limited (which is a £3,000,000 investment vehicle without any personnel).
January 2, 2023:
Christen Ager-Hanssen does not make the report about his Satoshi research findings public, though, as we learn from a reply on Twitter.
Which is a tremendous pity, because the undersigned pointed out the numerous long form articles on this Medium page to Christen a few times in 2022, with the kind request to debunk them line by line in the upcoming research report. The silent — and predictable — reply was not unexpected of course, but I was, and I still am, highly interested in Christen’s report nevertheless!
January 6, 2023:
Since Craig Wright did not cooperate with the Form 1.977 request in November last year, W&K is asking the court’s help with a “JUDGMENT CREDITOR W&K’S MOTION TO COMPEL JUDGMENT DEBTOR WRIGHT TO COMPLETE FORM 1.977”.
“For these reasons, and given that Wright has already refused for nearly two months, W&K respectfully requests the Court issue an order compelling Wright to provide a completed Form 1.977, including all the required attachments, within ten days. Pursuant to S.D. Fla. L.R. 7.1(a)(3), counsel for Plaintiffs [W&K] conferred with counsel for Defendant [Craig Wright] who opposes the relief requested.”
This motion of W&K will ultimately succeed, but not “within ten days”.
January 17, 2023:
Kyle Roche is officially being pulled from the Kleiman v Wright case. Over the years, starting February 28, 2018, his role in this case was very limited, but his name is now being withdrawn from the record as Kyle Roche no longer works for the law firm that represents Ira Kleiman and W&K: Freedman Normand Friedland LLP and thus, of course, Kyle Roche can no longer represent the plaintiffs.
Judge Beth Bloom affirms on the same day:
“PAPERLESS ORDER granting 905 Motion to Withdraw as Attorney. Kyle Roche representing Kleiman, Ira (Plaintiff) is withdrawn from this case. Signed by Judge Beth Bloom (aun) (Entered: 01/17/2023)”
January 24, 2023:
Craig Wright’s camp fabricate another “written consent” document in which it is fraudulently claimed that The Huck Law Firm is being engaged to represent W&K in several lawsuits, including Kleiman v Wright.
January 26, 2023:
And out of the blue for most, this new lawyer enters the scene in Kleiman v Wright, pretending to be acting on behalf of W&K: Paul C. Huck Jr.
The ‘Huck Fuck’ is born.
January 27, 2023:
The following day, Ira Kleiman notifies the court that it wasn’t him hiring Huck. And Ira is nailing it with his analysis “Evidence clearly shows that Dr. Wright unlawfully gained control of the W&K company back in 2013, and it appears that he is now attempting to use family members to do so again.”
February 3, 2023:
Meanwhile, the struggles of and around Kyle Roche don’t go unnoticed in the BSV camp. Some comments can be considered nothing short of disgusting, meanwhile totally misrepresenting what had actually happened.
February 10, 2023:
Vel Freedman, Ira Kleiman’s lawyer, protests against the latests actions happening in his PLAINTIFF W&K’S MOTION TO STRIKE
PAUL C. HUCK, JR.’S NOTICE OF APPEARANCE.
“As explained above, in contrast to Wright’s latest story, Judge Bloom has already found (twice) that Wright had failed to produce any credible evidence that anyone other than David Kleiman owned an interest in W&K (Dkt. № 265 at 10; Dkt. № 615 at 34); Judge Bloom has already found (also twice) that Wright had failed to establish that the Estate could not act on behalf of W&K (Dkt. № 68 at 13; Dkt. № 615 at 35); and this Court has already found — by clear and convincing evidence — that Wright’s “testimony that [Tulip] Trust exists was intentionally false,” and “part of a sustained and concerted effort to impede discovery into his bitcoin holdings” (Dkt. № 273 at 21), a finding that Judge Bloom affirmed (Dkt. № 373 at 15).”
February 22, 2023:
Crypto Leaks, having been silent after the Kyle Roche video leaks for no less than six months, announces three more “cases”. At the moment of writing (April 2023) not all these three cases have been published yet, but only two of them instead.
On April 30, 2023 we will learn something equally dramatic, though.
March 1, 2023:
Despite a plethora of false antics that Craig Wright has unleashed, Craig Wright has to fill in Form 1.977, Judge Reinhart orders on this day.
“As discussed above, the resolution of this motion does not turn on the membership structure of W&K or whether the owners of W&K authorized the motion. Whether W&K’s counsel engaged in misconduct is also irrelevant. Here, a jury awarded a judgment to W&K after trial. Dr. Wright has not articulated how the alleged misconduct by W&K’s counsel undercuts the validity of that judgment. He also fails to explain how it was misconduct for counsel to “resuscitate” an entity that a jury found was entitled to over $100 million in civil damages. At the end of the day, resolving this motion is simple. W&K is a judgment creditor. It asks for an order requiring the judgment debtor to fill out Form 1.977. The Motion to Compel was signed by lawyers who have properly entered appearances for W&K and remain counsel for W&K. See S.D. Fla. Local Rule 11.1(d)(3). The Florida Rules of Civil Procedure require the Court to order the debtor fill out the form. None of the debtor’s arguments present a legal reason why the Court is excused from that obligation. WHEREFORE, it is ORDERED that W&K’s Motion to Compel (ECF №903) is GRANTED. On or before April 1, 2023, Dr. Wright shall complete the Fact Information Sheet Form 1.977 from the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure, including all attachments.”
Of course, Craig Wright wouldn’t be Craig Wright if he doesn’t appeal a judgment that he lost. So Craig Wright appeals this order, which will be dealt with by Judge Bloom at the end of this same month.
March 15, 2023:
Released on March 10, 2023, but filed on March 15, 2023 by Team Freedman in an unrelated-to-Kleiman-v-Wright lawsuit against Dfinity: an expert report by David Kalat in which the strong suggestions are being made that the illegal recordings of Kyle Roche contain ‘extensive signs of tampering and manipulation’ and ‘artifacts of deepfake technologies’.
“The Spy Videos can be classified into two distinct categories. The first set of sixteen (16) videos appear to have been recorded in an office or conference room (the “Office Videos”), and the second set of nine (9) videos appear to have been recorded in a restaurant (the “Restaurant Videos”). […] I conducted a forensic review of the published videos, with special focus on the nine Restaurant Videos. As set forth in detail below, I conclude that these videos exhibit extensive signs of tampering and manipulation and cannot be accepted as reliable or authentic documents of what was said at those meetings.”
March 20, 2023:
On this day, Craig Wright hears that he is losing another ruling. Craig does not manage to get Ira’s counsel kicked from the Kleiman v Wright case, as Judge Reinhart rules:
“Whatever may have happened in other cases is not before me. I have presided over extensive proceedings in this case. From my vantage point, all counsel have been highly professional, ethical, and zealous advocates for their clients. The sole issue presented by the current motions is whether Dr. Wright has met his burden of proving that the Firms should be disqualified in this case. He has not. WHEREFORE, it is ORDERED that the Motions to Disqualify are DENIED.”
March 27, 2023:
And a week later, Craig Wright also loses the appeal about the debt collection form. He has to fill in Form 1.977 April 3, 2023 the latest. And since Ira Kleiman’s counsel asked for financial compensation to litigate this issue, Judge Beth Bloom also asks counsels to deliberate about that. She then leaves the ultimate decision to Judge Reinhart somewhere shortly after April 17, 2023.
April 3, 2023:
We just read in Judge Bloom’s order:
“Failure to complete Form 1.977 by April 3, 2023 will result in Dr. Wright being held in contempt.” (emphasis mine)
April 4, 2023:
However, Judge Reinhart is not stupid either, and immediately orders the following:
Coincidentally, on April 3, 2023 and April 4, 2023 Craig Wright’s contempt of court case in the UK is also being heard by no less than two judges: Warby and Nicklin. On April 5, 2023 is Judgment Day.
However, this contempt event sizzled… “Craig Wright’s UK Contempt of Court Case Over Alleged Embargo Breach Abandoned — Judges at the High Court in London said they didn’t have the resources to explore the issue fully.” and it appears that Craig Wright narrowly escapes a contempt judgment against him.
How do we know this? Because we get a clear idea about which way the evidence would have taken Justice Warby. We can find the following quote in the ruling that clearly hints to the direction that Warby would have gone with this contempt case.
“We are satisfied that there is prima facie evidence of a breach by Dr. Wright of the embargo on the draft judgment”
April 10, 2023:
CryptoLeaks releases another story, number 4 in their series, called “Why Sam routinely manipulated token prices using FTX and Alameda”.
April 20, 2023:
Vel Freedman files “W&K’s EXPEDITED MOTION FOR SANCTIONS AND AN ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE WHY DEFENDANT CRAIG WRIGHT SHOULD NOT BE HELD IN CONTEMPT”. A doozy. For example, let’s take the page where Vel Freedman summarizes what Craig Wright “forgot” in relationship to Form 1.977:
April 25, 2023:
CryptoLeaks releases another story, number 5 in their series, called “Ava Labs (Avalanche) uses fake “astroturf” accounts to sell AVAX tokens, slander rivals, and fool its community”.
At this day, Craig Wright also files his response to the contempt accusations in the April 20, 2023 motion. We learn from this response that he is lying on Twitter and Slack, places where he regularly argued that he is the inventor of Bitcoin. But, “it goes without saying that what people represent on social media isn’t proof of anything.” Couldn’t agree more on that, right?
April 26, 2023:
Vel Freedman now files the expert report of David Kalat, making the point that the leaked, illegal Kyle Roche recordings are likely deep fakes, in the Kleiman v Wright lawsuit. Please scroll back to March 15, 2023 for a few quotes. The full report is otherwise behind the link to the CourtListener court docket.
“In light of the existence of deep fake techniques to materially alter or even invent audio-visual content, it is especially noteworthy that the Restaurant Videos contain unexplained breaks in audio at conspicuous moments, and an apparent loss of visual detail around the speaker’s face. These artifacts are consistent with the use of deepfake techonology. Consequently, because these videos exhibit signs of repeated compression, tampering, and extensive manipulation, it is my conclusion that they cannot be accepted as reliable or authentic documents of what was said at those meetings.
In light of the findings discussed above, I believe, to a reasonable degree of scientific probability, that the Restaurant Videos are the subject of manipulation that may include deepfake alterations.”
The accompagnying filing letter reads:
“Moreover, the authenticity of the videos Wright cites have now been called into question by an expert who opined that the evening videos “exhibit signs of . . . extensive manipulation,” “cannot be accepted as reliable . . . of what was said,” and that “to a reasonable degree of scientific probability,” they “are the subject of manipulation that may include deepfake alterations.” But more fundamentally, even if Mr. Roche did make such a statement, it would be utterly irrelevant. As Wright and his counsel are well aware, Mr. Roche is not an attorney at FNF and he has no further involvement in this case. FNF’s remaining attorneys were not implicated in that video, have done nothing to question their integrity, “have been highly professional, ethical, and zealous advocates for their clients,” and all remain officers of the Court subject to its discipline. On these indisputable facts, Wright’s purported “concern[]” about FNF disregarding a Court order is frivolous.
Second, aside from his frivolous argument addressed from above, Wright does nothing to satisfy his “burden of showing why such information is entitled” to confidential, let alone AEO, treatment. Instead, Wright impermissibly attempts to shift the burden to W&K, arguing that W&K would not be prejudiced if it were precluded from reviewing the Form 1.977. That is not the applicable standard, and even if it were, Wright’s argument would still fail. An “AEO designation is considered a ‘drastic remedy given its impact on the party entitled to the information’ as it ‘limits the ability of the receiving party to view the relevant evidence, fully discuss it with counsel, and make intelligent litigation decisions.’”
April 30, 2023:
CryptoLeaks suddenly disappears from Twitter. Their website on cryptoleaks.info remains accessible for the moment though.
Was it all a set up?
Okay, dear reader, let’s make up the balance here, and close this article for the moment. What do you think now? Was Christen Ager-Hanssen hired by camp Craig Wright to disrupt the debt collection by Vel Freedman et al in the Kleiman v Wright lawsuit? Or is this whole line of events a series of coincidences that came together, by accident, which made up, by the same accident, for a very exciting if not dramatic chapter in the Faketoshi saga?
You tell me. I lean towards a series of coincidences, to be honest. But since we are on the brink of contempt rulings in the Kleiman v Wright, and a “Huck fuck” that is still not solved appropriately, we are not done yet with the drama! To be continued, I’m sure…
Thanks again for reading, and as usual, see you next time!
