Topic: Facebook's Zuckerberg In Trouble Again? Yep. And This Time It's Much Worse.

[trapeze]

Funny thing is, I just saw the movie, The Social Network a week or so back. And now this hits the fan...

Remember Paul Ceglia?

He's the fellow in upstate New York who sued Mark Zuckerberg last July, claiming that, way back in 2003, Zuckerberg had agreed to give him a 50% ownership in the project that became Facebook.

That claim seemed preposterous at the time, not least because Ceglia had waited 7 years to file it.
And there was also the fact that Ceglia was a convicted felon, having been charged with criminal fraud in connection with a wood-pellet company he operated.

In the weeks following the filing of the lawsuit, Ceglia produced what Ceglia said was a copy of the contract he and Mark Zuckerberg had signed covering two projects on which the two were working together--a Ceglia project called "StreetFax" and a Zuckerberg project called "the face book." He also produced a canceled check for $1,000. He also explained why he waited 7 years to file the claim.

The purported contract (we analyzed it here) gave Ceglia a 50% ownership in "the face book" project in exchange for funding its initial development, as well as an additional 1% ownership of the project per day for every day that the project remained uncompleted past a certain launch date.

When the lawsuit and the purported contract came to light, Facebook dismissed the whole thing as a fabrication.
Specifically, Facebook said the StreetFax part of the contract was real but that the rest had been doctored to include mention of "the face book."

And given the time that had passed, Ceglia's fraud conviction, and the lack of a payment trail for payments made to fund the development of "the face book" (as opposed to StreetFax), this indeed seemed the most logical explanation.
But now Paul Ceglia has refiled his lawsuit. With a much larger law firm. And a lot more evidence.

And the new evidence is startling.

Read it. Read it all. If it holds up in court (and they will almost certainly settle) then Zuckerberg looks like an even bigger crook than he was made out to be in the movie.

[ToddF]

 

[trapeze]

I just thought of something else. Zuckerberg made news a few months back with this announcement:


[blockquote]12:55 p.m. | Updated Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook, may be the world’s youngest billionaire. But he’s already pledging to give away most of his wealth.

He and 16 other households have joined the Giving Pledge, a campaign by Bill Gates and Warren E. Buffett to commit wealthy individuals to giving away at least half of their holdings during their lifetimes or after their deaths.[/blockquote]

Oops.

He might want to rethink that now that Ceglia is likely entitled to the half that he isn't giving away.

[LadyVirginia]

He and 16 other households have joined the Giving Pledge, a campaign by Bill Gates and Warren E. Buffett to commit wealthy individuals to giving away at least half of their holdings during their lifetimes or after their deaths.[/blockquote]

He could start with giving Ceglia his half now.