Facebook has asked that a federal judge throw out a lawsuit that makes claims of a New York man owning half of the social media platform. Facebook described the lawsuit as a ‘massive fraud’ and a ‘farce.’ Court documents were filed on Friday that said the plaintiff in the lawsuit was arrested in October and charged in a multi-billion dollar scheme to defraud Facebook and founder Mark Zuckerberg through the lawsuit.
The plaintiff in the case, Paul Ceglia, was released on $250,000 bond a couple of days ago. He hails from Wellsville, New York. The lawsuit was filed in 2010 and it mentioned documents and a contract he reportedly had with Zuckerberg. Those documents and contract said he should get 50 percent of the social media platform. The lawsuit he filed caused the fraud charges but his lawsuit is continuing for some reason.
“This lawsuit is a massive fraud on the federal courts and defendants,” Facebook said in the court filing. “It has now descended into farce.”
In the documents filed by Facebook in court, the company mentioned notes passed between nine law firms that represented Ceglia in his lawsuit. The letter went between Dennis C. Vacco and Aaron Marks. Marks said in the letter that he thought the contract in the argument ‘is fabricated.’ Ceglia has been accused of mail fraud on one count and wire fraud on one count. If convicted he faces a maximum of 20 years in prison per count.
The company said that it believed from the start that the emails and the contract Ceglia provided as evidence were actually fake. Facebook then hired private investigators to look into the past of Ceglia. A federal judge was told by Facebook that forensic examiners discovered the contract from Ceglia was ‘forged’ and that 27 emails from Zuckerberg and Ceglia were ‘fabricated’ by Ceglia.
Zuckerberg has said that he and Ceglia had a ‘work for hire’ contract in the past but it dealt with Ceglia hiring Zuckerberg to work on Ceglia’s StreetFax company over 10 years ago. Ceglia says that the contract talked about Ceglia fronting Zuckerberg $2,000 in an exchange for half of Facebook while Zuckerberg was at Harvard.