Could 84% of Facebook soon fall into the hands of a web designer (later wood pellet distributor) called Paul Ceglia? It's unlikely, but to prevent it, Facebook will have to disprove Ceglia's claims in court.

According to the lawsuit (embedded below), filed in the Supreme Court in New York's Allegany County last month, Paul Ceglia signed a contract with Facebook in April 2003 to design and develop thefacebook.com (Facebook's original name).

Ceglia claims that, according to the contract, he was to be given a $1,000 fee and a 50% stake in Facebook for services rendered, with a further 1% stake for each day until the site was finished, which was on February 4, 2004. Add it all up, and Ceglia claims he should be the owner of 84% of Facebook.

The terms of the contract are weird, and the timing (more than six years after the contract was signed) of the lawsuit is suspicious at best, but the story gets even weirder from there, as Ceglia was sued last year for failing to deliver wood pellets to customers, with damages to the tune of $200,000.

We don't see Ceglia winning this, but it already caused some problems for Facebook; the court has issued a temporary restraining order, barring founder Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook from transferring any assets. Facebook asked for the case to be transferred to a federal court, and is trying to have it annulled.

[via Guardian]

[img credit: KLH49, iStockphoto]