Roche makes an assertion that the recordings were staged by a third party to harm the lawyer and his company.
In a Medium article published on Monday, Kyle Roche, the attorney at the core of claims made by the website Cryptoleaks concerning a covert arrangement between his company and Ava Labs, answered.
The attorney vehemently rejected any covert arrangement between the firms, much like Ava Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer.
According to Roche, Dominic Williams, the developer of the ICP Token, ordered the recordings that were recorded and posted on Cryptoleaks’ website.
In October of last year, Roche’s company, Roche Freedman, filed a class action lawsuit against Williams and his Dfinity Foundation. The attorney disputed the veracity of the claims he made in the tapes and said they had undergone extensive editing. When cited by Roche:
“Statements in the video […] are false, and were obtained through deceptive means, including a deliberate scheme to intoxicate, and then exploit me, using leading questions.”
The videos show the lawyer in two different contexts. First, he can be seen holding a wine glass in one sequence of clips, which was shot at a restaurant. The second collection of videos seems to have been shot in an office environment.
On Monday, Sirer also responded to the accusations presented by Cryptoleaks on his seldom visited Medium blog. Sirer reiterated his denial that Ava Labs and Roche’s legal team had a covert arrangement to rig the American legal system against its rivals. Sirer penned:
“Roche is not on our executive team, and we do not look to him for advice outside of the few small matters where he used to represent us. […] He has handled only a few cases of minor importance for us in his area of competence.”
An anonymous website called Cryptoleaks has maintained that it launches investigations based on information provided by informants.
In addition to the recordings of Roche, Cryptoleaks said that a lawsuit brought by a former partner against Roche, his partners, and his legal firm in a Florida circuit court serves as more proof of the secret pact.
According to the lawsuit, which was published on the Cryptoleaks website, “Ava Labs has committed to pay Roche Freedman LLP a set quantity of Tokens over a thirty-six month period commencing on September 30, 2019, in return for legal services.”
