Garzik Subpoenaed in Lawsuit Against Wright

Jeff Garzik, a well-known Bitcoin developer, revealed that he had been given a subpoena by the United States District Court of Southern Florida in the contentious Kleiman vs. Wright lawsuit.

Garzik stated that he had been ordered to submit all various documents as well as possible evidence that could help in this case.

Contentious Lawsuit

The Kleiman family had filed a suit against Craig Wright, the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, in February of 2918. The family claimed that Wright had stolen as much as 1.1 million BTC after David Kleiman had passed away.

David Kleiman was a computer scientist who many believe was one of the original developers of Bitcoin and its accompanying Blockchain technology.

Now, his family is suing Wright for about 300,000 BTC (~$1.1 billion) for the alleged theft. According to the Kleiman Estate as well as David’s brother, Ira Kleiman, Craig Wright had cheated David and had manipulated all his crypto-assets.

According to the allegations by Kleiman’s family, after David died in 2013, Wright contacted his estate, claiming that he wanted to help in the disposal of the computer scientist’s BTC fortune.

The Kleiman family, in its lawsuit, claimed that Wright never returned those funds. The family further alleged that Wright had created a number of contracts that showed David’s assets had been transferred to Wright himself or to companies owned or controlled by him. The family said that Wright backdated these contracts and then forged David’s signatures on them.

Wright had tried to have these allegations and the lawsuit against him dismissed. However, the court rejected his plea, stating (according to a court document) that it had found that the Kleiman’s suit was enough for a conversion.

Details of the Subpoena 

Now, at this stage of the lawsuit, the courts have asked Garzik to appear before the court and submit any evidence to prove that David Kleiman was, in fact, the fabled Satoshi Nakamoto. Added to that, the court also asked Garzik to provide all agreements, communications as well as documents related to Kleiman as well as Wright.

Garzik has also been asked to submit information about all Bitcoin mining activities that took place between January 1, 2009 to April 2013. He has also been asked to provide documents that could refer to Liberty Reserve, Silk Road, the Prometheus Project and Mt. Gox.

Other documents requested by the court include communications with Ian Grigg, the financial cryptographer, Richard Zaluski, the CEO of Center for Strategic Cryberspace and Security Science, as well as Roger Ver, famed early BTC adopter.