Paul Ceglia has been best known as the guy who sued Facebook while claiming to be an original co-founder of the social network. Now Ceglia will best be known as the guy who was charged with mail and wired fraud for falsifying information.
Ceglia has long claimed that back in 2003 he signed a contract with Mark Zuckerberg that entitled him to a billion dollar stake in the company. The men did share a connection as Zuckerberg had completed some programming work for Ceglia while attending Harvard.
In his Facebook lawsuit Paul Ceglia claimed that Mark Zuckerberg shared his plans for Facebook while working at StreetFax. Ceglia then claimed he paid Zuckerberg $1,000 for a partial investment in the social company.
To prove his case Paul Ceglia submitted what he claimed were emails exchanged between the men which discussed his investment and the future of Facebook.
According to US Attorney Preet Bharara Ceglia had hopes for a “quick pay day based on a blatant forgery.” The US Attorney then noted:
[quote type=”large” align=”left”] “Dressing up a fraud as a lawsuit does not immunize you from prosecution.” [/quote]
The case was blown wide open when a forensics attorney noted that the emails had been typed into a Microsoft Word document by Ceglia and then declared to be the text of emails with Zuckerberg.
So there you have it, Mark Zuckerberg continues to be one of the only Facebook founders on record.
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