Lawyers representing a group of Dogecoin investors who are suing Tesla CEO Elon Musk want the billionaire’s lawyers thrown out for misconduct, according to a new court filing in the case.
In a filing submitted to the federal court in Manhattan, the DOGE lawyers called on the judge to disqualify Musk’s attorneys for showing a pattern of “deprecating and oppressive misconduct” in the case.
“Trials should be litigated and defended by attorneys, not by yes-men,” the plaintiffs wrote. “Tesla is a publicly traded corporation whose CEO cannot unilaterally yoke its legal defense to his own purposes.”
The plaintiffs specifically point to a letter that was reported on by the New York Post on June 15 as proof of the defendants’ “dirty tactics”.
The letter, written by Musk lawyer Alex Spiro, demanded the withdrawal of an amended complaint that accused the Tesla CEO of secretly owning two wallets that sold $124 million in DOGE during a two-day period in April when Twitter replaced its signature blue-bird icon with an image of Dogecoin’s logo, a Shiba Inu dog. They allege that Musk did this to manipulate the price of DOGE.
In the letter shared with the Post, Spiro rejected the allegations and attacked the competency of one of DOGE’s lawyers, Evan Spencer. The plaintiffs accused Spiro of trying to “materially prejudice” the case by disparaging Spencer.
For this, the plaintiffs’ attorneys called on the judge to dismiss Spiro and other lawyers from the Quinn Emanual firm working for Musk, and to levy financial penalties on them for their conduct. The DOGE lawyers also called for the dismissal of Tesla attorney Allison Huebert for her work for Musk in the case.
Neither Spencer nor the Quinn Emmanual attorneys immediately returned Decrypt’s request for a comment.
The $258 billion court battle between the world’s richest man and the meme coin investors began last June over allegations that Musk was part of a racketeering scheme to back the cryptocurrency.
Musk, who gleefully tweeted for years about his interest in DOGE and who has worked with the token’s founders in the past, denies any wrongdoing.
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