Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

A man charged with fraud for claiming half- ownership of Facebook Inc. based on a phony contract and faked e-mails is missing, his lawyer said.

Paul Ceglia, who twice lost bids to dismiss the charges, had been ordered to wear an electronic tracking device. Robert Ross Fogg, his lawyer, said the ankle bracelet was found at Ceglia’s home.

“I don’t know where he is,” Fogg said. “I haven’t got a clue.”

U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick in Manhattan in February rejected Ceglia’s argument that his prosecution violates his constitutional right to petition the government. The judge turned down Ceglia’s request to dismiss the charges. The trial is to begin in May.

U.S. marshals on Sunday found the electronic monitoring bracelet that Ceglia was supposed to be wearing at his home, Fogg said. Fogg was told about the disappearance of his client Sunday by the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan.

James Margolin, a spokesman for Bharara, declined to comment on Ceglia’s case.

J. Peter Donald, an FBI spokesman in New York, didn’t immediately respond to a voice-mail and e-mail after regular business hours. The New York office of the U.S. Marshals Service couldn’t be reached after business hours.

Ceglia Sued

Ceglia sued Facebook and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg in 2010, claiming the two signed a contract in 2003 giving Ceglia the right to half the company.

Facebook and Zuckerberg said the document was a forged version of a contract Zuckerberg had signed to do freelance website coding for Ceglia. They said the genuine contract had nothing to do with Facebook, which Zuckerberg didn’t conceive of until later.

A federal judge in Buffalo, New York, dismissed the suit last year, calling the contract “a fabrication.” The judge also dismissed a lawsuit by Ceglia seeking to block the New York prosecution. Ceglia has appealed both decisions.

Ceglia, who lives in Wellsville, New York, was ordered to wear a monitoring device as a condition of his pretrial release on bail. Before he was charged, he moved temporarily to Ireland. The judge in his civil suit ordered him to return to the U.S. or face dismissal of his claims.

The case is U.S. v. Ceglia, 12-cr-00876, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).