Craig Wright’s co-worker tried to stop the court case – he didn’t listen.

Craig Wright's ex-partner Kristen Ager-Hansen told Cointelegraph that he tried to stop the gruesome court case before it began.

But when Ager-Hansen believed that the court case could not be defeated and that Wright was a fraud, others, including Wright's billionaire supporter Calvin Eyre, refused to oppose it.

Wright, who falsely claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto in the COPA and Wright trial in the UK, is awaiting a court date for perjury in the UK. High Court judge Edward James Mellor said Craig Wright lied “profusely and repeatedly” during the six-week trial that began in February.

“All of his lies and forged documents were in support of his biggest lie: that he was Satoshi Nakamoto,” Mellor said.

Mellor presented the case to the Crown Prosecution Service on July 16. None of this comes as a surprise, says Ager-Hansen, who says alarm bells are ringing before the case even begins.

When Ager-Hansen meets Wright

Ager-Hanson first met Wright in June 2022 while attending Royal Ascot, a high-society horse race frequently attended by members of the United Kingdom's royal family.

He said Wright's cheat sheet was largely the same during their first meeting.

“What I now know is that I've been shown fake documents that show he's Satoshi – that's not true,” Ager-Hansen told Cointelegraph.

Wright billionaire financier Calvin Eyre and nChain co-founder and executive chairman Stefan Matthews, who manage the Bitcoin fork Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV), also attended the first meeting.

“They wanted me to help him manage his legal affairs,” Ager-Hansen said.

Ager-Hansen describes nChain as something akin to a “cult” with a cult mentality, and after agreeing to join, he quickly dived into its strange inner workings.

Ager-Hansen says that “the sick thing” is in such a ritual[…] It's really fun. “

A hundred million reasons to lie

While there is no doubt that nChain has its downsides, Ayre has put the company together.

“He's richer than people believe,” Egger-Hansen said of Irene. […] I was paid very well. “I was paid to win the case,” Ager-Hansen said. “I was offered $100 million to win this lawsuit.”

Ager-Hansen wasn't the only one with such a lucrative deal on the table. Ager-Hansen says that nChain's executive chairman, Stephan Matthews, was similarly encouraged by Ire.

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During the trial, Matthews claimed that in 2008 Wright showed him a draft of the Bitcoin (BTC) white paper, but as Ager-Hansen explained, Matthews had a hundred million reasons to lie about it.

Like Wright, Mellor finds Matthews “absolutely unconvincing,” saying “Mr. Matthews was more careful with his lies than Dr. Wright, lying only where he had to in order to maintain Dr. Wright's position.

That may not help Matthews in the long run. If the perjury charges are brought as expected, he could find himself in the dock with Wright.

The Atrocious “Mock Trial”

Over time, Ager-Hansen's concerns about the matter grew.

“I felt like that [Wright] It was not believable,” Ager-Hansen said.

Ager-Hanson said he arranged a mock trial for Wright in September 2023, during which Wright was questioned by a senior lawyer known in England as a King's Counsel, or Casey.

“Calvin and Steven Matthews were going to show that Craig was a fraud,” Ager-Hanson said.

When Ager-Hansen asked Wright how he did during the mock trial, his assessment was brutal.

“He was as stupid as he was in the real court case,” Ager-Hansen said. “I told Calvin and Steven – if you're supporting Craig, you're mad. You have to focus on the business and distance yourself from it.

That time #RichardHeartWasRight revealed in front of a live audience that #CraigWright was #FakeSatoshi… pic.twitter.com/D6Djv6BX9j

— FreedomFutureGary (@HexyFuture) March 14, 2024

Following the mock trial, Wright's cross-examiner Casey was offered $100 million of his own. According to Ager-Hansen, KC rejected Ayre's offer.

History shows that Matthews and Eyre unwisely chose to ignore the mock trial and Ager-Hanson's concerns. Both men believe that they are too invested in lies at this point.

If Wright had won, billions of dollars in legal issues could have been in Airey's control, and the heist on Bitcoin itself would have been possible. Pursuing the case at all costs was the triumph of greed over good sense.

Before the end of the month, Ager-Hansen removed himself from nChain and publicly presented many concerns about the former company.

Bad news for Wright

Cointelegraph spoke with Andrew Balthazor, a digital assets and blockchain litigation arbitrator at law firm Holland & Knight, to find out how Mellor's ruling will affect Wright going forward.

In addition to the perjury charges that could have resulted in prison time, Wright has made many enemies in several countries.

“He filed lawsuits in the United Kingdom, Florida and other places […] He sued them for defamation because people said he was lying. It is clear that those have not aged well in the current context,” Balthazor said. “Truth is generally a defense to defamation.”

According to Balthazor, Wright may have a “valid claim” to have been the target of legal action in the past — and Wright has never been one to shy away from litigation — which has earned him a legion of enemies.

Wright has many, many legal issues.

In December 2022, Wright lost a defamation lawsuit against Magnus Granat, known by his online alias Hodlonaut. Granat called Wright a “fraud.”

In December 2023, Wright won a defamation lawsuit against podcaster Peter McCormack. McCormack called Wright “a prolific liar,” and also said, “He's a fraud, and he's an idiot.”

A UK judge ruled that the statements met UK defamation standards and ordered McCormack to pay damages to Wright's reputation, estimated at one pound ($1.29) at the time.

Along with McCormack's case, Wright followed suit against Kraken and Binance, BSV, which is owned by nChain, should be listed as the real Bitcoin.

Balthazor told Cointelegraph that Wright still has two open cases against Romona Ang, the wife of his late former colleague Andy Kleiman in Florida.

In December 2021, a trial in Florida ordered Wright to pay $100 million to W&K Info Defense Research.

Wright argued that he started the company believing he would have to pay himself $100 million (which grew to $143 million with interest).

A further lawsuit against Bitcoin Core developers for control of 110,000 BTC ($7.4 billion) was reportedly dropped in April.

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All of these issues are now tainted by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) case and a further criminal case in the UK.

“The language used by the court was very beautiful. “I think his personal credibility is clearly shot,” Baltazor said. “I think a good lawyer would use the false evidence in a COPA trial to discredit him and reopen cases that were probably closed.”

Christine Ager-Henson confirmed to Cointelegraph that she plans to sue Wright, Matthews and Ayre. But first, someone who isn't Satoshi could face perjury charges in the UK.

It's a remarkable turn for Wright, who once rubbed shoulders with the British royal family but could soon find himself in the custody of Her Majesty the First Trinity.