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A judge has moved against granting access of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerman’s computer to a man who claims he owns half of facebook. Paul Ceglia signed a contract with Zuckerman years before Facebook picked up, and claims that document entitles him to owning half of facebook – worth billions of dollars.
His 2010 lawsuit is founded on the 2003 contract when Ceglia hired Zuckerman, a freshman at Harvard, to help him create a street-mapping database, granting him $1,000 in startup capital, and stipulating an exchange for half ownership of the company, if it grows.
Zuckerman’s lawyers have provided what they claim is the actual contract signed by Zuckerman, which makes no reference to Facebook; they challenge Ceglia’s version of the contract to be a doctored fraud, and Zuckerman himself has claimed to have not even thought of what would become Facebook at the time of the contract.
Magistrate Judge Leslie Foschio has denied Ceglia his attempt to discovery of Zuckerman’s computers, but has given him access to question Zuckerman’s experts. Ceglia’s attorneys seemed pleased with the results, saying:
“The court recognized that Mr. Ceglia is entitled to certain discovery necessary to respond to the pending motions to dismiss. Specifically, Mr. Ceglia will obtain discovery of experts hired by the defendants and the opportunity to challenge their conclusions, some of which have already been contradicted by Mr. Ceglia’s own experts. We are pleased that the judge has ruled that this discover should proceed, and we are hopeful that once we have obtained and presented this information, the court will deny the defendants’ motions to dismiss and allow the case to proceed to full discover and an eventually trial.”
Orin Snyder, Zuckerman’s lead attorney, was equally pleased with the ruling, for different reasons:
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“We are very pleased with today’s ruling. The Court denied Ceglia’s request for broad discovery and continues to focus these proceedings solely on the question of Ceglia’s criminal fraud. We welcome the opportunity to develop additional evidence of Ceglia’s misconduct and look forward to having him held accountable.”
Zuckerman’s team are focusing on the inauthenticity of Ceglia’s contract, looking specifically at the forensics of the ink and the wording of the language.
