Background to Paul Ceglia
Paul Ceglia was a wood pellet salesman who lived in Wellsville, New York State and alleged that he had written a contract in 2003 to hire Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO to carry out computer programming for his company, called Street Fax, after he had responded to an advert published by Ceglia on Craigslist.
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) was paid $1,000 for his work, however, he also provided evidence to suggest that he had made a $1,000 investment into “The Page Book” and Paul Ceglia claimed in a lawsuit that this investment entitled him to a 50% of Facebook and sued both Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg.
The Email Evidence Provided by Paul Ceglia
Paul Ceglia provided a series of email correspondence that had been sent between him and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) that suggested that the agreement for a 50% share had been made.
However, the court then ordered that a computer forensic examination of Paul Ceglia’s computer was carried out on behalf of Mark Zuckerberg, contrary to Paul Cegla’s requests.
The Digital Forensic Findings of the Email Examination
During the examination, Facebook identified the document that contained the original contract dating from 2004 and, whilst his case was becoming believed by many, it showed that Paul Ceglia’s contract made no reference to “The Page Book” or Facebook and only mentioned his own company, Street Fax.
The examination also identified the use of 6 USB memory sticks that were claimed to have been lost by Paul Ceglia and found in one of those devices was a folder named “Facebook Files” and and image file that was named “Zuckerberg Contract page1.tif,” and this image was the same as the one used by Paul Ceglia in his lawsuit.
Paul Ceglia’s Claim to Facebook
Facebook alleged that the contract that had been produced had been forged to support Paul Ceglia’s claim and forensic experts also examined Mark Zuckerberg’s email account from the time and found no evidence of the email chain that Paul Celgia had also produced that contained the agreement of 50% share in Facebook.
The case against Facebook was then dismissed by the court and Paul Ceglia was then arrested on charges of attempting to defraud Facebook of 1 billion US Dollars.
About Athena Forensics
For information on our digital forensic services or if you require any advice or assistance please contact a member of our team on 0845 882 7386 or via email on enquiries@athenaforensics.co.uk, further details are available on our contact us page.
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