Guy Who Claims to Own Facebook Files Staggering Evidence

Paul Ceglia reveals over a dozen emails about Facebook's origins
By Mark Russell,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 12, 2011 9:21 AM CDT
Guy Who Claims to Own Facebook Files Staggering Evidence
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is being sued by Paul Ceglia, who claims he owns 50% of the social networking giant.   (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

The man who claimed to own 84% of Facebook last year has refiled his lawsuit—and this time he's backed by a much bigger law firm ... and a lot more evidence. Paul Ceglia is now "just" claiming ownership of 50% of Facebook, but he is being represented by DLA Piper, a huge international firm that specializes in IT. Presumably DLA Piper, which says it spent weeks checking out the validity of Ceglia's claims, would not touch this case if it wasn't convinced that Ceglia's emails are totally genuine, writes Henry Blodget for Business Insider in a lengthy overview of the case.

Among the revelations in the newly produced emails from July 2003 to July 2004 are exchanges between Ceglia and Mark Zuckerberg about creating "the face book"; questions about using source code from Ceglia's StreetFax.com site for Facebook; and a back-and-forth in which Ceglia threatens to contact Zuck's parents when Facebook was late. The emails also show that Zuckerberg was stalling a competing site by "a couple of upperclassmen" (presumably the Winklevoss twins). After launch, Zuck later claimed he had no time to work on the site, which he has said students weren't that interested in, and offered to return Ceglia's $2,000 investment—a week before incorporating Facebook, Inc. Writes Blodget, "Ceglia's emails do not make Ceglia sound like a prince among men, either." So if they're fake, "he was smart enough to add verisimilitude to his tale by making himself look like a bit of a jerk. In short, to us at least, the emails don't read 'fake.'" They're a pretty awesome read; click to check them out. (More Facebook stories.)

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