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When Mark Zuckerberg was busy inventing and then experimenting with Facebook in 2003, in his Harvard dorm room, the not-yet-billionaire was making a living doing programming work for StreetFax.com, which was owned by one Paul Ceglia.
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Time went by, Facebook became the Google of schmoozing, Zuckerberg was raking in the billions, and then, one day, Paul Ceglia came up with a contract between Zuckerberg and himself that said 50 percent of Facebook belonged to Ceglia.
If you guessed that Zuckerberg’s reaction was that his face lit up and he said, Finally, I was beginning to worry, and he brought in suitcases full of cash and handed them to his former employer – guess again. In fact, the authorities were promptly alerted, and now the US government is trying to prove Ceglia forged the contract, dragging the distinctly not billionaire Ceglia before a Manhattan federal court.
The Wall Street Journal reprorts Assistant US Attorney Christopher Frey says the government will subpoena Zuckerberg to testify before US District Judge Andrew Carter in New York federal court. The trial is set for Nov. 17.
In 2010, Ceglia filed a civil suit against Zuckerberg and Facebook in Buffalo, N.Y., over the same suspicious contract, Zuckerberg denied any such contract existed and a federal judge dismissed the suit. At which point the feds became curious about the whole case and started an investigation.
So far, Judge Carter has ruled against Ceglia’s lawyers’ motions to look at Zuckerberg’s cell phone, email and bank records from 2003 and 2004, saying it was a blind fishing expedition. They also can’t have his Harvard email account records and any disciplinary records there might be against him for unauthorized use university computers.
