Lawyer for fugitive Paul Ceglia says in personal lawsuit that Facebook and its counsel defamed him
1000 Words / Shutterstock.com
One of the lawyers who represented fugitive Paul Ceglia in a high-profile unsuccessful lawsuit against Facebook Inc. and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has now filed suit against Facebook on his own behalf.
Attorney Paul Argentieri alleges that Facebook, Zuckerberg and the company’s general counsel, Colin Stretch, defamed him in a statement the Facebook lawyer made to the media in 2014. It concerned a malicious prosecution lawsuit that Facebook had filed against Argentieri and other lawyers who represented Ceglia, Bloomberg reports.
Argentieri’s suit was filed Monday in state court in San Francisco. It says Stretch’s 2014 statement that lawyers for Ceglia “knew the case was based on forged documents” was defamatory.
The statement “exposes plaintiff to hatred, contempt, ridicule and obloquy because it attacks plaintiff’s integrity, honesty and professionalism as a lawyer and falsely accuses plaintiff of committing a crime and of knowingly perpetrating a fraud on the court,” the suit contends.
A spokeswoman for Facebook called the new lawsuit “patently frivolous,” Bloomberg reports.
Argentieri was a sole practitioner in New York while representing Ceglia but now lives in California.
Argentieri is the only lawyer who represented Ceglia throughout his unsuccessful civil litigation seeking an ownership share in Facebook, Bloomberg reports.
Based on accusations that he fabricated documentation supporting his civil suit, Ceglia was federally indicted in 2012 in a Manhattan mail and wire fraud case, removed an electronic monitoring bracelet and fled with his family.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “DLA Piper Withdraws from Paul Ceglia’s Suit Against Facebook”
ABAJournal.com: “Facebook sues DLA Piper, other firms, 9 attorneys, says they conspired on fraudulent case”
