It appears his continued presence was creating real problems for Roche Freedman, which was recently ejected from a market manipulation suit against Bitfinex and Tether.
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Kyle Roche has left the crypto law firm he co-founded — months after he was exposed in embarrassing, secretly recorded videos.
Roche Freedman confirmed the news in a statement — and announced that it will now be known as Freedman Normand Friedland.
A scandal kicked off in August after a website called Crypto Leaks claimed that the law firm, as well as the company that develops the Avalanche blockchain, were involved in "an extraordinary secret pact that harms the crypto industry."
It was alleged that Ava Labs gave the law firm "a massive quantity" of stock — as well as AVAX tokens now worth hundreds of millions of dollars — to attack rival projects that may compete with Avalanche in some way.
The expose raised alarm bells given it featured covert records of Kyle Roche, who bragged that he "sues half the companies in the industry" — and doing so meant his law firm can demand access to confidential information including data and internal emails during the discovery process.
He claimed to be one of the "top 10" crypto experts worldwide, and was caught on camera describing juries as "10 idiots."
Roche ended up withdrawing from a number of class action lawsuits that his firm was pursuing against the likes of Tether, Bitfinex and the Tron Foundation — despite the fact he claimed there was "a deliberate scheme to intoxicate and then exploit him" in this Crypto Leaks report.
He added that the article had contained "numerous unsourced false statements and illegally obtained, highly edited video clips that are not presented with accurate context."
New Headaches for Roche Freedman
Despite his departure from these cases, Roche Freedman had a number of headaches to contend with as it tried to continue suing the likes of Bitfinex and Tether.
Both companies had called for the law firm to be disqualified from the case, and said they were worried that it could pass on confidential information obtained during the discovery process to Ava Labs. During a hearing earlier this month, Judge Katherine Polk Failla had said:
"His comments were uniquely stupid and unfortunate. Whether they were true or not is something I'm still trying to figure out."
Things came to a head last week when Roche Freedman was ejected from that market manipulation suit. According to Law360, the judge rejected the law firm's claims that Roche's remarks were nothing more than a drunken mistake — amid fears that his stated litigation strategy could taint the case.
In a statement, newly named Freedman Normand Friedland said:
"We are focused on continuing to provide our clients with top quality representation and are proud of the firm's accomplishments to date. We wish Kyle the best in his future endeavors."
The law firm's website has already been hastily redesigned, and its social media profiles replaced.
