Paul Ceglia returns to haunt Zuckerberg, this time with more alleged email evidence
He started from a tough place. A convicted felon, about to be charged with fraud on an unrelated company, Ceglia had waited seven years to file his first lawsuit. Facebook dismissed the claims. But now he’s back with DLA Piper, a bigger law firm used to tech cases, which has gone through his email archive with a fine toothed comb and come up with a devastating initial salvo.
Business Insider has republished a number of emails that allegedly show that Mark Zuckerberg might be construed to have mislead Ceglia – to the extent that he lost his share of the company. Meanwhile, the emails allegedly show Zuckerberg stalling the Winklevoss twins, not unlike a certain movie portrayed him as doing.
As of this hour (early) Facebook hasn’t responded to the claims to us, but has told Business Insider that the emails are fabricated. We’ll be following this up shortly.
This time round Ceglia has produced what he claims are emails from July 2003 to July 2004, sent between him and Zuckerberg, which cover the birth of Facebook and how Ceglia might fund it. Then later they allegedly show Zuckerberg going cold on the deal, offering Ceglia the return of a $2,000 funding – all while Zuckerberg had moved to California to develop Facebook.
Presumably if the emails are fake Facebook has nothing to worry about. If not, then Ceglia is looking at a very large pay day. The fact that DLA Piper is sticking its neck out on this – and will have done a lot of due diligence – is however significant.