Facebook Calls Ceglia Ownership Claim 'A Fraud'

02.06.2011
Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook are trying to bring another Facebook-ownership lawsuit to a close. The social networking site filed a motion Thursday asking a federal judge to order Paul Ceglia to turn over evidence which Facebook says will prove that his entire case is a fraud.

Ceglia first filed his claim against Facebook in , and then . Ceglia claims that Zuckerberg signed a contract in 2003 that awarded Ceglia half of Facebook--along with an additional one percent for every day that his website was unfinished past January 1, 2004.

The site was finished on February 4 of 2004, so Ceglia claims he owns 84 percent of Facebook.

Facebook, naturally, has denied these claims and says Ceglia is a fraud. Its motion Thursday seeks the original contract and the e-mails he is using as evidence to prove its defense. The company cuts no corners in getting to the point in the filing: "The contract is a cut-and-paste job, the e-mails are complete fabrications, and this entire lawsuit is a fraud."

This isn't the first time Zuckerberg has ended up in court over Facebook. The Winklevoss twins sued him in 2004, claiming he stole the idea for the social networking site from them.

The case was settled in 2008 for $65 million, but the twins . They re-sued for further compensation, but were (what their settlement would be worth now) and the original stake in the site that they received.