Facebook claims 'smoking gun' in Ceglia lawsuit

16.08.2011
Facebook attorneys filed court documents Monday contending they have found "smoking-gun evidence" in a lawsuit over whether a New York man is due part ownership of the social networking company.

Paul D. Ceglia of Wellsville, N.Y., first in June 2010 against co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, claiming he was entitled to of what has grown to become the world's largest social networking site. In an amended filing this spring, Ceglia claimed he was owed 50% of Zuckerberg's stake in the social networking company.

Ceglia claimed he had email evidence from 2003 showing that Zuckerberg, who was a student at Harvard University at the time, promised him a stake in the company in exchange for doing design and programming work on the fledgling site.

Facebook is saying its lawyers have uncovered an "authentic" contract that shows that Ceglia isn't owed any part of Facebook.

The document that filed with the court is a contract for work being done by Zuckerberg on Ceglia's business StreetFax.com. The document does not mention Facebook.

"The court-ordered forensic testing has uncovered the authentic contract between Mark Zuckerberg and StreetFax that Ceglia attempted to conceal," Facebook lawyers wrote in a document filed with the U.S. District Court in the Western District of New York. "This smoking-gun evidence confirms what Defendants have said all along: the purported contract attached to the complaint is an outright fabrication."