A British judge is referring self-proclaimed bitcoin inventor Craig Wright to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to consider criminal charges of perjury and forgery. The judge said that CPS can decide whether Wright should be arrested and granted two injunctions that prohibit Wright from re-litigating his claim to be bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto.
"I have no doubt that I should refer the relevant papers in this case to the CPS for consideration of whether a prosecution should be commenced against Dr. Wright for his wholescale perjury and forgery of documents and/or whether a warrant for his arrest should be issued and/or whether his extradition should be sought from wherever he now is. All those matters are to be decided by the CPS," Justice James Mellor of England's High Court of Justice wrote in a ruling issued today.
If Wright actually believes he is Nakamoto, "he is deluding himself," Mellor wrote.
Mellor previously found that Wright "lied repeatedly and extensively" and forged documents "on a grand scale" in a case related to Wright's claim that he is Nakamoto. The case began when Wright was sued by the nonprofit Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), which said its goal was to disprove Wright's bitcoin-inventing claim and stop him from claiming intellectual property rights to the system.
Wright’s location unknown
Wright's location is unknown, today's ruling said. "The evidence shows that Dr. Wright has left his previous residence in Wimbledon, appears to have left the UK, has been said to be traveling and was last established to be in the time zone of UTC +7," Mellor wrote.
COPA asked Mellor "to dispense with personal service of the final Order on Dr. Wright" because his whereabouts are a mystery. COPA told the court that "Dr. Wright may either be deliberately evading service or at least is peripatetic and is very difficult to locate." Mellor wrote that COPA's view "seems to me to be fully justified and warrants the order which COPA seeks as to service of my final Order on Dr. Wright at his solicitors."
After the events of the trial, Mellor's decision to refer Wright for a perjury prosecution was apparently an easy one. "As COPA submitted, if what happened in this case does not warrant referral to the CPS, it is difficult to envisage a case which would... In advancing his false claim to be Satoshi through multiple legal actions, Dr. Wright committed 'a most serious abuse' of the process of the courts of the UK, Norway and the USA," Mellor wrote.