New York, April 16: JUST AS Mark Zuckerberg must have returned to counting his billions after the Winklevoss twins were given their marching orders from court, another claim to his Facebook fortune has emerged.
Paul Ceglia, of Wellsville, New York, the latest force to reckon with Zuckerberg and Facebook, has now hired a prestigious law firm to help him claim what he says is his share of the social networking site.
If he wins, he could be entitled to millions if not billions of the Facebook fortune.
When he first filed a lawsuit last July, the whole thing was dismissed, mainly because of the fact that Ceglia waited seven years to file it and because he was a convicted felon, with charges of criminal fraud.
Facebook said the whole thing was a complete fabrication.
But now Ceglia is back, with a bigger law firm and more evidence to prove that Zuckerberg did promise him 50 per cent ownership in ‘ the face book project’. Business Insider got a hold of the emails and said the evidence against the Facebook creator is ‘ breathtaking’. They discuss how Ceglia will fund the project. They discuss how Ceglia has funded the project.
In one email, dated November 2003, Zuckerberg allegedly mentions “ a couple of upperclass men here at Harvard that are planning to launch a site very similar to ours.” He says he has “ stalled them for the time being” but says he must “ make a move soon.” They discuss how Zuckerberg has failed to complete ‘ the face book’ project on time. They discuss the launch of ‘ the face book’, which Ceglia agrees looks great.
The emails then include Zuckerberg telling Ceglia that the Facebook site is not doing well. That the site has seen so little success that he is thinking of shutting it down. And, in the summer of 2004, they include Zuckerberg offering to send Ceglia his $ 2,000 of funding back — right at the time he had moved to California to continue to develop, incorporate, and raise money for Facebook.
Ceglia contends that most of what Zuckerberg told him after the launch of the site was lies as the site took off from the moment it began.
He also contends that in the summer of 2004, Zuckerberg ‘ misappropriated’ the assets of their general partnership and conveyed them to the corporation that became Facebook Inc.
Facebook is claiming the emails are fake and told Business Insider that Ceglia is a ‘ scam artist’ and a ‘ convicted felon’. DLA Piper, a major international law firm that primarily represents technology companies, is now representing Ceglia.
It would be damaging for them to take on a case of this magnitude if they did not think there were any truth in Ceglia’s claims.
The company told Business insider that they performed ‘ weeks’ of due diligence to persuade itself that Ceglia’s claims were valid, including an electronic analysis of the contract Ceglia provided.
They said they are confident it has not been doctored.
Fake emails are reportedly easy to expose as there is only so far in the digital trail you can take it.
Dennis Vacco, an attorney representing Ceglia, said, “ The beauty of the emails is they represent a contemporaneous account, not viewed from the prism of the present day ‘ man of the year’, but viewed from the eyes of a Harvard student at the time these events were actually occurring.” Orin Snyder, an attorney for Facebook, called the claims ‘ ridiculous’. “ This is a fraudulent lawsuit brought by a convicted felon and we look forward to defending it in court,” Snyder said in an e- mailed statement.
Business Insider also points out that if they are fake, Ceglia will be going to jail for a very long time.
Zuckerberg and Ceglia first worked together in April 2003 when Zuckerberg agreed to do some coding work for Ceglia’s Website StreetFax. He was paid $ 1,000.
–Agencies