Mark Zuckerberg's Enemy Fled the Country
Paul Ceglia has decamped to Ireland in the middle of his lawsuit to seize control of Facebook. The convicted felon says he fled following harassment from Facebook private investigators. But maybe Ceglia, described by neighbors as a con man, is more worried about the suspicious emails he submitted as evidence.
Ceglia, who is claiming in federal court to have seeded Facebook via an ownership contract with Zuckerberg, told his hometown paper in upstate New York that Facebook's investigators "harass me and my family daily.... From waking up to discover people hiding in (a) back field with binoculars, to being followed day-in and day-out by these guys, to coming home and finding a back window open that I know I personally locked." Therefore, Ceglia has traveled to Ireland with his (co-defendant) wife and his kids to "catch my breath" and to work on inventing a cheap "refrigerator/cookstove" for the third world.
Right, right. But might Ceglia's flight out of U.S. jurisdiction have less to do with fears for his safety and more to do with losing four sets of lawyers amid allegations he forged incriminating emails from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg? The suspicious emails got their initial credibility from the supposed due diligence of Ceglia's big law firms—all of which have abandoned him as a client.
Meanwhile, Facebook says it has some sort of "smoking gun" to prove Ceglia's case is bogus. While Ceglia's neighbors have described him to the press as a serial liar, if his email evidence is proven false in court, the consequences will likely extend well beyond reputation damage. Assuming, that is, he can be physically held to account.
