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Paul Ceglia's Case For 50% Of Facebook Falls Apart Soon After He's Arrested For Fraud

from the yeah,-that's-not-going-to-go-well dept

Fri, Nov 2nd 2012 5:33pm — Mike Masnick

For a few years now, we've covered the situation with Paul Ceglia, a guy who once hired a young Mark Zuckerberg to do some programming work for him, claiming that Zuckerberg did a deal to provide half of Facebook to Ceglia. The details were a little weird, but Ceglia was able to bring on some high powered lawyers, the types who usually don't take on bogus cases. Of course, then that law firm eventually looked at the details and dropped him. In fact, it seemed like he had trouble keeping lawyers. Facebook grew progressively more aggressive in arguing outright fraud and presented ever increasing evidence that the whole thing was a complete sham.

While the case was clearly flopping, the last week has not been a good one for Ceglia. Late last week he was arrested by the feds for the supposed fraud in the case, and if that wasn't enough to deal with, his case against Facebook & Zuckerberg looks to be (unsurprisingly) closer to falling apart completely after the court has decided that the extremely damning evidence of fraud can be discussed in the case.

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Filed Under: fraud, paul ceglia, scams
Companies: facebook

11 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2012 @ 6:21pm

I'm still waiting for my 50% share of techdirt. When are you going to deliver Mike?
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- Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2012 @ 8:20pm
  
  Re:
  He'll give it to you on the same day the RIAA goes 24hours without doing/saying something evil.
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  - The eejit (profile), 3 Nov 2012 @ 1:04am
    
    Re: Re:
    That one's pretty easy. Now, if you'd said stupid, on the other hand...
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- Atkray (profile), 2 Nov 2012 @ 8:52pm
  
  Re:
  He has to debate you first.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2012 @ 6:30pm

ROFL! I love to watch a plan someone thought could never go wrong backfire. It's extremely satisfying when the plan is so bad everyone else "most importantly me" knows it gonna happen sooner or later.
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phlynhi (profile), 2 Nov 2012 @ 6:34pm

Quoting out of context
..."in his case against Facebook, Zuckerberg looks to be (unsurprisingly) closer to falling apart completely after the court has decided that the extremely damning evidence of fraud can be discussed in the case."

Not to be a nit, and maybe I'm sleepy, but I got so hung up on the last sentence of this article, that I'm stuck in an infinite logical loop, and must retire...
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- Frankz (profile), 2 Nov 2012 @ 7:03pm
  
  Re: Quoting out of context
  ..."in his case against Facebook, Zuckerberg looks to be (unsurprisingly) closer to falling apart completely after the court has decided that the extremely damning evidence of fraud can be discussed in the case."
  
  Not to be a nit, and maybe I'm sleepy, but I got so hung up on the last sentence of this article, that I'm stuck in an infinite logical loop, and must retire...
  Same here. If only he'd used "and" instead of a comma between Facebook and Zuckerberg.
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- Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2012 @ 7:59pm
  
  Re: Quoting out of context
  I had to re-read that sentence too. Of course logic immediately dictates that Zuckerberg can't be falling apart, but it's still a bit jarring.
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  - The eejit (profile), 3 Nov 2012 @ 1:05am
    
    Re: Re: Quoting out of context
    Well, it was Hallowe'en earlier this week, so he might be...
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- Mike Masnick (profile), 2 Nov 2012 @ 11:15pm
  
  Re: Quoting out of context
  Dah. Somehow an "&" got replaced with a ",". Sorry about the confusion.
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FM Hilton, 3 Nov 2012 @ 2:41am

Payback
In an alternate universe, Ceglia would now be sitting in his beach front home, sipping a cold drink and laughing at the fools that he totally scammed into giving him whatever he claimed was his.

However, in this universe of reason, logic and law, he's going to be doing time in prison cell wondering how the hell he could have thought he would get away with such a stupid idea when smarter people than he got suspicious of his fraud and the proceeded to unravel it.

Ain't karma a bitch!
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