Facebook in trouble again - for at least 50% shares this time

Facebook and Mark Zukerberg are still not out of legal issues as the problems keep coming up for them every few months. Paul Ceglia, a New York resident who sued Mark Zuckerberg last year for 50% ownership of Facebook, has re-filed his complaint with solid proofs this time.

As per Ceglia, he paid Zuckerberg $1,000 for development work on a site called StreetFax, and $1,000 for work on the site the Face Book, which Zuckerberg had already started. The alleged contract also says that Ceglia would own 50% of the software, programming language and business interests of Facebook. That contract was included in Ceglia's suit from 2010.

Ceglia re-filed the suit this monday with high-profile law firm DLA Piper, and he included several alleged e-mails between him and Zuckerberg from July 2003 to July 2004. The amended complaint was first reported by Business Insider.

Click here to view the case filed against Facebook and Zukerberg and the contract agreement between Zukerberg and Ceglia.

As per the mails given as proof, they had conversations and finally settled for a 50-50 ownership of Facebook. This proposal was given by Zukerberg and Ceglia  replied, "OK fine Mark 50/50 just as long as we start making some money from this thing."

Thefacebook.com launched on Feb. 4, 2004 and few days later Zuckerberg mailed Ceglia that he must take creative control and that he didn't want to publicize the site with flyers. On April 6, 2004, Zuckerberg wrote that he had become too busy to deal with the site and no one wants to pay for it, so I am thinking of just taking the server down.

The final e-mail included in the suit was a July 22, 2004, mea culpa from Zuckerberg: "Paul, I am guessing that you don't want to talk to me but I wanted to say happy birthday and that I hope to resolve our differences. I see that what I did was wrong and I am really sorry that I behaved as I did..."

The complaint alleges that at the time of that e-mail, Zuckerberg had received or was about to receive funding from angel investors and was in the process of meeting with venture capital funds to provide additional capital. At no time did Zuckerberg inform Ceglia of these facts.

The complaint goes on to accuse Zuckerberg of multiple types of fraud and misappropriation of assets.