There was an escalation in mudslinging in the legal battle between a group of Dogecoin investors and Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk.
On Thursday, Evan Spencer, the lead lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit, submitted a filing in the New York federal court.
The filing
In the said filing, the lawyer once more reiterated the argument he had previously put forward about suspending the attorneys of the tech billionaire from the case.
According to Spencer, the tactics that the defendants were using were nothing short of a harassment campaign against him and his clients.
He said that Musk was using his bottomless war chest for carrying out an unlawful harassment campaign against them.
The latest accusation of the lawyer is a continuation in a running saga that has seen a number of filings made in court recently.
A request for throwing off Musk’s attorneys was filed by Spencer on June 26th and he also asked that they be sanctioned financially for using ‘dirty tactics’ in proceedings pre-trial.
The primary reason for Spencer’s accusation was the letter that Alex Spiro, Musk’s lawyer, had written and on June 15th, it had been published by the New York Post.
Back and forth
The said letter was aimed at withdrawing an amended complaint, which alleged that the SpaceX CEO had ownership and control of two wallets.
These two wallets had been used for selling millions of DOGE tokens back in April within a two-day period with the sole purpose of manipulating its price.
The allegations were rejected by Spiro and he doubted the competency of Spencer as a lawyer for making them in the first place.
A riposte was issued by the legal team of Elon Musk on July 7th, which referred to the request that Spencer had submitted about their dismissal as an ‘insult’.
They also added that the accusations about them leaking the letter were ‘unsubstantiated’. Plus, they also argued that even if they did leak it, even then it was not in breach of ethics rules.
More attacks
Spencer stated that he did not have any prior relationship with the reporter from the Post and added that only Musk’s team or someone working on their behalf could have leaked the said letter.
He also asserted that the said tactics were in line with the sharp-elbowed lawyers that Musk preferred, referring to a tweet from May 2022.
In the said tweet, Musk had bragged about Tesla’s litigation department comprised of ‘streetfighters’.
Spencer said that the misconduct of the defense counsel was in line with Musk’s ruthlessness which could be seen in his tweets.
The lawyer further suggested that the defense counsel was working on additional attacks in the future. The filing said that the lawyers had already made false claims about Spencer in the media before.
He also said that they were likely to do so again. However, no evidence was provided by Spencer for supporting the said claim.
The legal battle between Musk and DOGE investors started last year in June, where the latter has accused the former of backing the meme token as part of a racketeering scheme.