TL;DR: Former Bitcoin Core (BTC) developer Peter Todd filed a defamation lawsuit back in early April, claiming sexual assault accusations made against him by pseudo-anonymous Tor developer isis agora lovecruft [sic] publicly online are false. Recently, lovecruft has filed a 29-page declaration in response, insisting her claims against Todd are in fact true. In support of lovecruft, Bryce Wilcox, known as “Zooko,” CEO of Zcash, has filed his own declaration, introducing yet another claimant against Todd as Jane Doe.

Former BTC Dev Sexual Assault Defamation Lawsuit Moves Forward

“In the interests of full disclosure,” Todd announced, “note that Isis Lovecruft has filed a response to my lawsuit against them. On advice of counsel I won’t be commenting further at this time, but I look forward to responding in court,” pointing to a long list of court motions and declarations concerning the lawsuit he brought to clear his name.

As CoinSpice first reported in April, Todd’s filing of the defamation claim against lovecruft stems from his contention “roughly three years ago she publicly accused another man of sexual assault. When Todd did not publicly condemn the man, that is when, according to Todd, she accused Todd of rape and sexual assault.” The complaint indeed shows several instances of lovecruft accusing various men of degrees of harassment and outright assault, … without any initial direct connection to Todd.

The suit received minor amounts of public attention, with Todd at one point seeming to give lovecruft a soft out, “I hope Isis Lovecruft does the right thing here. If she does I hope the wider community acts in the spirit of forgiveness and healing, as will I,” he posted, going so far as to insist “when I knew Isis they went by ‘she/her’; I’ve asked my lawyers to use ‘they/them’ in the future, and I’ll do the same.”

Rebuffed

Evidently, such overtures and olive branches have been rebuffed as of July 15th, 2019. lovecruft’s declaration is filled with instances of Todd allegedly “making explicit, verbal sexual advances” as far back as 2014, which lovecruft stressed were “flagrantly inappropriate and demeaning, and I expressly and repeatedly informed him that his advances were unwelcome.”

In the Fall of 2015, lovecruft maintains, Todd continued to follow lovecruft though lovecruft insisted he not. When lovecruft moved in Todd’s opposite direction, “At that moment, Mr. Todd grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him. In defense, I shoved his chest with both hands, open palmed, causing him to stumble back but not fall.”

It goes on in this manner with sexually explicit statements attributed to Todd directed at lovecruft. Also according to lovecruft, by early 2018 Zooko, CEO of Zcash, “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,” an accusation lovecruft repeated publicly against Todd. lovecruft swore in the declaration under oath “based on both my personal experiences and the information recounted above, I made a Twitter post in which I obliquely referred to Peter Todd as a rapist. I sincerely believed then that that statement was true, and I continue to believe it today.”

Zooko’s court declaration confirms lovecruft’s recollection of their conversations and his introduction of Jane Doe to lovecruft. “The defense team asked me to make a statement to the court about things I know that are relevant to the defamation question,” Zooko posted to a personal Medium account. “This is my statement that was submitted to the court today. Court filings are made public by the court, and in order to head off any possible rumor or misrepresentation I’m posting the entirety of my statement here. I have nothing else to say about this matter at this time.”

DISCLOSURE: The author holds cryptocurrency as part of his financial portfolio, including BCH.

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