Craig Wright, one of the faces behind Bitcoin SV has been denied a motion to dismiss a case where he is alleged to have misappropriated Bitcoins worth billions of dollars from the estate of a former business partner. The southern district court of Florida dismissed the attempt.

Wright was business partners with Dave Kleiman, an author and forensic computer investigator who passed away in 2013 after a long battle with MRSA.

Now Wright is being sued by Ira Kleiman on behalf of his brother’s estate. He is accused of plotting to seize Dave’s Bitcoins and his rights to particular intellectual property that are associated with the virtual currency.

 The Estate Seeks At Least 300,000 BTC

So, Ira is seeking that Wright returns a portion of the 1.1 million BTC (currently worth around 3.85 billion) that the two had mined or its fair market value. He also seeks compensation for IP infringement.

However, in April of 2018, Wright filed a motion to dismiss the case. But, a court document that was seen on 27, December reveals that most counts of his motion have been denied.

An excerpt of the order states:

“Here, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged a claim for conversion. The Amended Complaint alleges that Defendant converted at least 300,000 bitcoins upon Dave’s death and transferred them to various international trusts, which was an unauthorized act that deprived the Plaintiffs of the bitcoins therein. Accordingly, Plaintiffs’ claim for conversion (Count I) survives the Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss.”

Also, in the document, the court notes that it’s yet to determine the exact number of Bitcoins involved, but the estate claims it’s at least entitled to 300,000 bitcoins along with forked assets.

The court also dismissed Wright’s attempt to have the constructive fraud claim by the estate dropped.

The order indicates that the Plaintiff learned of Wright’s conduct on April 22, 2014, however “they did not know the extent of the harm, upon learning of the Defendant’s conduct from the ATO auditor, the Plaintiffs should have discovered the Defendant’s misapplication of the trade secrets through the ‘exercise of reasonable diligence.’”