Craig Wright Receives Suspended Jail Sentence for Contempt of Court

Craig Wright, who falsely claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, was found to be in contempt of court and handed a 12-month jail sentence after starting a legal claim for 900 billion pounds ($1.1 trillion) over intellectual property rights related to the Bitcoin system.

The case was brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance, which argued that Wright’s suit in October violated the London court’s July ruling barring him from pursuing proceedings related to his claim to be Nakamoto.

“When it comes to the grounds of contempt I have found each of them proved beyond reasonable doubt,” Judge James Mellor said.

Wright, who was in Asia, attended the court virtually on Thursday to hear the sentence, which is suspended for two years. Wright declined to say where in Asia he was and insisted he would appeal the verdict.

In March, Mellor ruled that Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto. He then issued a court order preventing Wright from pursuing proceedings in the U.K. and other jurisdictions related to the claim.

“Dr. Wright is perfectly capable, once the dust has settled, of ramping up his public pronouncements again,” Mellor wrote at the time.

Prior to COPA’s victory, Wright had brought several court cases against the bitcoin community around the bitcoin whitepaper, libel suits as well as claims against developers.

Read more: Craig Wright Lied to UK Court ‘Extensively and Repeatedly,’ Judge Writes

UPDATE (Dec. 19, 16:15 UTC): Updates with judge’s ruling, sentence.

CORRECTION (Dec. 19, 16:41 UTC): Corrects figure in first paragraph to 900 billion pounds. An earlier version of this story said 900 million.

UPDATE (Dec. 19, 17:03 UTC): Adds judge’s comment in third paragraph, Wright’s location, appeal in fourth.