The man who claims that he owns half of Social Media Network Facebook, Paul Ceglia, has been deserted by his lawyers. DLA Piper, the reputed law firm, which has expertise in technology and intellectual property law has dropped Ceglia’s case, says a Geek post
On June 30, 2010, Paul Ceglia, the owner of a wood pellet fuel company in Allegany County, Upstate New York, filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, claiming 84% ownership of Facebook and seeking monetary damages. According to Ceglia, he and Zuckerberg signed a contract on April 28, 2003 that an initial fee of $1,000 entitled Ceglia to 50% of the website’s revenue, as well as an additional 1% interest in the business per day after January 1, 2004, until website completion. Zuckerberg was developing other projects at the time, among which was Facemash, the predecessor of Facebook, but did not register the domain name thefacebook.com until January 1, 2004.
In April 2011, Ceglia had claimed that he had new proof to back his assertion and had hired DLA Piper to support him in court. DLA Piper on their part had said that they had done a ‘thorough investigation’ into Ceglia’s claims and found that it had enough merit to be defended in court.
Facebook promptly responded by saying that they had done their own investigations and revealed that Ceglia had a criminal record and conviction for fraud among other damaging things.
Facebook’s stand was that Ceglia may have known Zuckerburg at one point of time but there was no commitment to give him half of the social network’s value and that the whole thing was a fabrication by Ceglia. Moreover, they claimed that Ceglia’s background proved that he was a habitual fraudster and that he should be ignored.
Now, not only DLA Piper but Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman, a smaller firm who also represented Ceglia has withdrawn from the case. Both law firms have not given any reason for dropping the case citing attorney-client privelege.
Henry Blodget of Business Insider speculates on the reasons for the lawyers’ departures. He says, “ it’s not like this is a case in which there’s just no evidence to back up a claim. In this case, there is oodles of purported evidence–documents, “emails,” everything. And, still, the lawyers are running for the hills. So that brings up another topic…
If Ceglia’s lawsuit is a fabrication based on fake documents and fake emails, Ceglia has now defrauded a New York court in addition to his attorneys and Facebook. Last time we checked, that was a crime.”
All of this hasn’t stopped Ceglia, though. He’s already signed up a new law firm based in San Diego to handle his case he’s still working with Paul Argentieri, the lawyer who’s been with him since the beginning of this case. It’s worth noting that Argentieri is also the lawyer who unsuccessfully defended him in the fraud case that led to Ceglia’s last conviction.