A Dubious Case Found Lawyers Eager to Make Some Money

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The New York Times
Tuesday, October 30, 2012

A Dubious Case Found Lawyers Eager to Make Some Money

By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN

It always seemed like a scam.

For the last two years, Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, had been locked in a bizarre battle with a suspected huckster, Paul Ceglia, who claimed that he owned as much as 84 percent of the social networking site. Mr. Ceglia produced a series of contracts and e-mails as proof of the deal he said he struck in 2003 with Mr. Zuckerberg, who was then still a student at Harvard.

Facebook called the evidence "phony" and "fraudulent." Yet the media couldn't get enough of the case, often taking it very seriously, in part, because Mr. Ceglia had what appeared to be an all-star cast of lawyers by his side, vouching for the credibility of the case.

There was DLA Piper, the largest law firm in the nation, whose former chairman was Senator George Mitchell. Dennis Vacco, the former New York State attorney general, also took Mr. Ceglia as a client. Mr. Ceglia had also signed up, albeit only briefly because the firm quickly dropped him, Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman, which has counted as clients the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the private equity firm Apollo Management.

Terry Connors, a respected former federal prosecutor, took on Mr. Ceglia and then dumped him as well.

Last Friday, Mr. Ceglia was charged with fraud, accused of forging the documents at the heart of the case. The United States attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, stated: "By marching into federal court for a quick payday based on a blatant forgery, Paul Ceglia has bought himself another day in federal court for attempting a multibillion-dollar fraud against Facebook and its C.E.O."

But guess who has come away seemingly unscathed?

The lawyers who represented Mr. Ceglia and - with dollar signs in their eyes - seemingly aided his cause.

Some of the law firms that worked for Mr. Ceglia not only took on the case, they argued volubly that they had vetted Mr. Ceglia's evidence.

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