Lawyers for Bitcoin Core contributor Peter Todd have filed a response to a motion to dismiss his defamation suit over sexual misconduct allegations.
In April 2019, former Bitcoin Core contributor Peter Todd filed a defamation suit against Isis Agora Lovecruft in response to sexual misconduct allegations. Following a motion filed by Lovecruft to dismiss that suit, Todd’s lawyers have responded with more opposition to the accusations.
Todd originally filed the suit against Lovecruft for tweeting that he, among other computer scientists, is a rapist. In the suit, Todd’s lawyers state that he “has never raped or sexually assaulted anyone” and that he “has been harmed and continues to be harmed” by Lovecruft’s “defamatory statements.”
Lovecruft then moved to strike Todd’s suit and filed a declaration in support of the strike, as did Zcash co-founder Bryce Wilcox (better known as Zooko), on July 15, 2019.
In their declaration, Lovecruft, who is transgender, recalls a traumatizing experience in a San Francisco café, alleging that Todd sexually harassed them and made threatening comments. According to the declarations filed by both Lovecruft and Zooko, this was not an isolated incident.
“In or around February 2018, Zooko connected me with two women whom I came to understand also had stories of being sexually harassed, and in one case, raped by Peter Todd,” Lovecruft claims.
According to Zooko’s supporting declaration, Todd had “pressured” one of the women “into sex while she was in a mentally compromised state due to a medical condition.”
On July 29, 2019, Todd’s legal team filed an opposition to Lovecruft’s motion to strike the defamation suit.
“Lovecruft’s defense would be compelling if it were not entirely fabricated,” the opposition reads. “The evidence shows that when Lovecruft has a disagreement with somebody, Lovecruft and Lovecruft’s collaborators publicly and falsely accuse that person of horrific crimes.”
The opposition goes on to allege that Lovecruft’s accusations were motivated by Todd’s decision not to support Lovecruft and Zooko’s Zcash work in 2018 and by his criticism of the project again in 2019. It also attempts to show a pattern of correlation between the people Lovecruft accuses of sexual misconduct and the people who criticize their work.