Website's founder to give evidence against Paul Ceglia, charged with forging documents claiming to own 50% of the site

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been called by the US government to testify in the trial of Paul Ceglia, a former Harvard college associate charged with forging an April 2003 document which apparently entitled him to a 50% stake of the social networking company.

Zuckerberg is expected to be a key witness against Ceglia in the trial, which is scheduled for 27 November.

“It's a witness [Zuckerberg] that the government 100% knows it will be calling at trial,” prosecution attorney Christopher Frey said at a court hearing in New York.

The forgery charges originate from a 2010 civil lawsuit Ceglia filed against Zuckerberg and Facebook, when Ceglia claimed the pair had signed a contract in 2003 when both were students at Harvard University.

Zuckerberg had previously worked as a programmer for for Ceglia's company, StreetFax.com, and maintained the only valid contract between them related to that company.

Prosecutors in Manhattan charged Ceglia in 2012 with forging documents, including the contract and email correspondence with Zuckerberg, and a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit.

At Tuesday's hearing, the judge, Andrew Carter, denied a request from Ceglia's lawyers to authorise warrants for Zuckerberg's mobile phone, email accounts and bank records at Facebook from 2003 to 2004 as overly broad.

He also rejected their bid for Zuckerberg's Harvard email account and any possible disciplinary records against him for unauthorised use of the school's computer system.

This is not the first time Zuckerberg has been involved in law suits. The claim from the Winklevoss twins that they were entitled to a slice of Facebook's profits was dramatised in the blockbuster film The Social Network.

• The Winklevoss twins are only the beginning of Zuckerberg's problems