[Construct]

First, Ceglia (who was previously convicted of fraud) waits 7 years to file this lawsuit. Now he releases a new batch of e-mails that bolster his story, which were conveniently omitted from his first round of accusations?

This is enormously suspicious across the board. It should be ignored as an annoyance and nothing else until a court finds otherwise.

[freshfunk]

It seems that he purposefully waited near the end of the statute of limitations (6 years) in order to file the lawsuit. I don't see this as a reason to question the validity of the lawsuit but, perhaps, strategy on his part to 1) see how the Winklevii did and 2) wait until FB's valuation was as high as possible before filing.

I think finding the emails on the second time around is suspect but defense lawyers will have a chance to review the evidence so it makes me think that DLA Piper did their due diligence to prove the veracity of these emails (otherwise they would know that it's likely to be thrown out before even coming to court).

[joshfinnie]

In another interview it was said that Ceglia found the facebook stuff while reviewing paperwork for the fraud case. He might have honestly forgotten and found the documents 7 years later.

[wallflower]

Who prints out emails? Besides my father, do people regularly print out emails? Maybe just important ones? I print out emails but usually they are e-Tickets. Call my cynical but I would rather trust an electronic copy on an ISP (or the archived copy) somewhere.

[samtp]

Your second sentence answered your first sentence

[16s]

Would be interesting to actually see the contract they are talking about. I'm sure one of them has a copy. While agreeing to a 50/50 deal in an email exchange may not hold water, a written contract between the two certainly would.

[mukyu]

Even the copy of the contract he provided to the court was nearly unreadable. [1]

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerbergs-facebook-con...

[lotusleaf1987]

I really don't think anyone just from reading the article(s) about the situation has enough information to know for sure.

[irahul]

And that's pretty much the point. It's the article which is claiming "emails don't appear fake" and "it looks real".

Unless its proven that the mails are real, FB shouldn't be harassed over it. If they don't have the forensic to prove it real or otherwise, shouldn't FB be getting the benefit of doubt since the guy is a convicted felon, remain silent for years, suspiciously came up with new mails months after initial lawsuit, seems excited about FB(the site he is talking about) and then goes dormant for 7 years...

[kovar]

You often need to go through the discovery process to determine what is real and what isn't. To go through discovery, you need to file a suit.

Just because someone is a convicted felon doesn't mean they're not entitled to the same access to the judicial system as everyone else.

[lotusleaf1987]

At the same time, that's a very prejudicial stance to take-- that anyone ever convicted of a crime is forever untrustworthy. Look at Tim Allen, he was a coke dealer going away for life who then turned state's witness, turned in all his accomplices and now he's in Toy Story trilogies.

I'm taking no stance until actual evidence comes forward or this goes to court and the emails in question can be examined and verified, if possible.

[phlux]

I would suspect that he had to go subpoena / pay-off some ISP to recover backups to pull out the emails after the other factors gave his a little bit of leverage, namely the twins case and the fact that facebook did concede that MZ and Ceglia worked together...