If You're Accused Of Trying To Scam Facebook Out Of 50%+ Of Its Equity, Probably Don't Have An Email Account Named GetZuck

from the and-don't-then-hide-it-from-the-lawyers dept

The case of Paul Ceglia, the guy who claimed that Mark Zuckerberg signed a contract giving him at least half (and maybe up to 84%) of Facebook, keeps getting more ridiculous. As more and more details came out there was considerable evidence supporting Facebook’s claim that the whole thing was attempted fraud. Ceglia, whose case got a big boost when legal giant DLA Piper decided to take it on… lost much of that credibility when they quickly dropped him. Since then, he’s had difficulty keeping lawyers.

And, now, he’s being accused of defying court orders and refusing to hand over the details of an email account he had with the username “GetZuck,” which raises just a few credibility questions.

Ceglia’s ongoing obstruction–in the face of repeated motions to compel–has prejudiced Defendants by denying them access to time-sensitive electronic material that this Court ordered Ceglia to disclose more than six months ago. Ceglia’s attorney Dean Boland appears to have recognized as much. After learning that his client had failed to identify webmail accounts in yet another violation of this Court’s Orders, he sent an email to Defendants’ attorneys offering to provide signed consent forms for two of the four undisclosed accounts: landlubber39@yahoo.com and paulc@hush.com. He did not, however, mention or offer Ceglia’s consent to the inspection of the alleganypellets@gmail.com or getzuck@gmail.com accounts.

The judge in the case has already ordered Ceglia to pay $76,000 in Facebook’s legal fees, as well as sanctioned him to the tune of $5,000 for delays in making his emails available. I’m guessing even those who originally thought Ceglia had strong evidence to support his case have probably long since changed their minds…

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Companies: facebook

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Comments on “If You're Accused Of Trying To Scam Facebook Out Of 50%+ Of Its Equity, Probably Don't Have An Email Account Named GetZuck”

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27 Comments
Chosen Reject (profile) says:

Compare to Righthaven

So this guy doesn’t tell them about an email account or two and refuses to hand over the info in a case where he’s suing a company that could finance this trial with the change in their lobby cushions and he has to pay $81,000. But Righthaven, a team of lawyers who should know better, stalls for months to not give information the court ordered them to in a case where they had a sham transfer of copyright which they should have known about in states where it’s probable they weren’t allowed to practice law and where they were completely ignoring the notice part of the DMCA’s notice and takedown provision and they were going after people who mostly couldn’t afford legal counsel, and they get a fine of only $36,000? Am I missing something or is this just more of that high court/low court thing.

Don’t get me wrong, this Paul Ceglia guy is in for a world of hurt and it seems like this punishment couldn’t have happened to a more worthy fellow, but it sure looks to me like there is a bit of an inequality in the measure of punishments being doled out here.

Q?r Tharkasd?ttir (profile) says:

There once was a genius called Tesla. Yet his name is known by none but a small circle of initiated, and it’s Edison (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla#Edison) and Marconi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla#Later_years) that made off with the cash and it’s their names posterity has remembered. 100 years forward, we have Zuckerberg, who’s the establishment’s baby (Bilderberg, Davos, you name it) and who’s been put at the head of a remarkable agency of social control. Now, let’s assume for a second that Ceglia is right (I have seen no evidence of the contrary). If the world keeps on going down the drain the way it is, will anyone even bother remembering his name?

Rick says:

Compare to Righthaven

You all are forgetting where all this information comes from – FB attorneys. If you look further, you will see that the email addresses were provided by Ceglia attorneys when they discovered them. FB attorneys wanted all the information relating to these announced emails – ASAP. When ASAP did not happen, they continued with their full public beating of Ceglia. Look further into the documents. The original contract has been shown by experts that they are original. Again, later, FB attorneys state the documents are not good. This whole story is like many others. If FB wins, it is because they have more expensive lawyers then Ceglia can get past.

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