The Social Network Part Two? The emails which could cost Mark Zuckerberg HALF of Facebook
Lawsuit: Paul Ceglia is suing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for a 50 per cent stake in the company
When a judge threw out an appeal by the twins who claimed they had the idea for Facebook first, it seemed the long-running legal feud dramatised in The Social Network had finally come to an end.
But now it seems there could be scope for a sequel, after Mark Zuckerberg became embroiled in a fresh legal row over the ownership of Facebook.
Paul Ceglia, of Wellsville, New York, has released emails which he says prove Mr Zuckerberg offered him a 50 per cent stake in the fledgling social network in exchange for $1,000 start-up funding.
The new evidence has emerged just days after Mr Zuckerberg won a final legal victory against twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who claimed he had stolen the idea for Facebook from their website ConnectU.
The claims are not new - last July Mr Ceglia filed a lawsuit against Mr Zuckerberg, citing a 'work for hire' contract between the pair which appeared to give Ceglia a 50 per cent ownership in 'the face book' project in exchange for funding its initial development.
He made two separate payments to Mr Zuckeberg of $1,000, one of which was for coding work on his site, StreetFax.
In the original terms, he could also receive an additional one per cent stake in the project for every day it remained uncompleted beyond its launch date, an agreement which Mr Ceglia claimed gave him 84 per cent of Facebook.
Mr Ceglia's case centres around a dozen emails exchanged between the two men from July 2003 to July 2004, the year in which Facebook was created.
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In his federal court complaint, Mr Ceglia said the emails show how Mr Zuckerberg tried to get him to abandon his interest in Facebook by souring their business relationship in 2004.
He also claims the Facebook founder downplayed the popularity of the site after its launch at Harvard University.
'Zuckerberg knowingly misrepresented to Ceglia that thefacebook.com was not successful, that he was too busy to deal with the website, that he had lost interest in the website and that he was shutting the website down,' according to the complaint.
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Mr Ceglia now contends that, in accordance with the original agreement, he is entitled to an equal share of Mr Zuckerberg's ownership of the social network, which has more than 500 million users across the world.
Mr Ceglia's updated claim has been lent credence by one the world's biggest corporate law firms, DLA Piper, who took on his case recently after 'weeks' of due diligence to ensure its validity.
Dennis Vacco, an attorney representing Mr Ceglia, said: 'The beauty of the e-mails is they represent a contemporaneous account, not viewed from the prism of the present day "man of the year", but viewed from the eyes of a Harvard student at the time these events were actually occurring.'
Face to Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg, right, meets actor Jesse Eisenberg, right, who played his character in The Social Network
The Social Network: The 2010 film starring Justin Timberlake, left, as Napster founder Sean Parker, anotheri investor, and Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg
Orin Snyder, an attorney for Facebook, called the claims 'ridiculous.'
'This is a fraudulent lawsuit brought by a convicted felon and we look forward to defending it in court,' Snyder said in an e-mailed statement to The Associated Press yesterday.
Mr Ceglia was put on probation in 1997 after pleading guilty to possession of hallucinogenic 'magic' mushrooms, Panola County, Texas, court records show. He was also charged with criminal fraud in connection with a wood pellet company he operated.
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