Paul Ceglia Arrested And Charged With Fraud Over Facebook Lawsuit

Paul Ceglia has been arrested by US federal agents and charged with fraud over allegations that he “doctored, fabricated and destroyed evidence” to support his claim that Mark Zuckerberg promised him a 50 percent share in Facebook back in 2003.

The charges follow an investigation by the US attorney’s office of New York and the US Postal Inspection Service, which has called Ceglia’s claims a “blatant forgery”.

Ceglia was arrested at his home in Welsville, New York on Friday and charged with one count of mail fraud and one count of wire fraud. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment.

Paul Ceglia arrested

Ceglia filed his lawsuit in 2010, alleging that he entered into a contract with Mark Zuckerberg in 2003 that promised him the stake in the company in exchange for a $2,000 (£1,228) investment. Facebook has always maintained that this was false, adding that the idea for what would become Facebook did not even arise until months after Ceglia’s alleged contract.

“As alleged, by marching into federal court for a quick payday based on a blatant forgery, Paul Ceglia has bought himself another day in federal court for attempting a multi-billion dollar fraud against Facebook and its CEO,” said Preet Bharara, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

“Ceglia’s alleged conduct not only constitutes a massive fraud attempt, but also an attempted corruption of our legal system through the manufacture of false evidence. That is always intolerable. Dressing up a fraud as a lawsuit does not immunise you from prosecution.”

As part of Ceglia’s claim, he submitted a two-page contract signed by himself and Mark Zuckerberg as well as a number of emails between the two discussing Facebook.

Track record of forgery

However forensic investigators said that this contract was forged as the first page had different spacing, columns and margins from the second page, which contained Zuckerberg’s signature.

Investigators searched Ceglia’s computer and found a contract from April 2003, in which Zuckerberg agreed to work on a website called StreetFax. There was also alleged evidence that Ceglia had deleted files relating to the original contract and replaced them with new, backdated files that supported the complaint.

A review of Harvard University’s email servers found no evidence of any of the purported emails between the two men and the only ones found concerned StreetFax.

Ceglia passed a polygraph lie detector test last year, but Facebook dismissed the reliability of this evidence, stating that “Ceglia does not dispute that he has a track record of forging documents to rip people off.”

The ownership and foundation of the social network has long been disputed. The Winklevoss Twins only dropped their legal challenge earlier this year after deciding to accept a 2008 settlement offer.

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