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Zuckerberg labels Ceglia lawsuit a 'brazen, outrageous fraud'

Boydroid's Facebook status remains the same

Mark Zuckerberg has asked a federal court in New York to throw out a lawsuit filed against him, because – according to the Facebook boss – the case is a "brazen and outrageous fraud on the court".

The uber social network boydroid filed a document calling on the US District Court in Buffalo, NY, to dismiss the case after firewood salesman Paul Ceglia revised his complaint against Zuckerberg last month.

According to a Reuters report, Facebook claimed that Ceglia's lawsuit was based on a "doctored contract and fabricated evidence".

In the filing, Facebook lawyers also claimed that Ceglia, who first sued Zuckerberg in July 2010, was "an inveterate scam artist whose misconduct extends across decades and borders".

Ceglia issued a revised complaint against Zuckerberg in April this year, in which he claimed to have evidence that showed he was entitled to ownership of half of the social network site.

He alleges in the suit that he is in possession of email exchanges with Zuckerberg where the two men discussed the terms of a 2003 contract and also talked about early development of the site, originally dubbed "The Face Book".

This isn't the first time Facebook has accused Ceglia of being a scamster. The company's lawyer Orin Snyder said similar last month.

In December 2009 the New York Attorney General took out a restraining order against Ceglia's wood pellet fuel company. Authorities claimed that Ceglia had lied and had repeatedly taken customers' money then failed to deliver goods or refunds. His business was later shut down.

Ceglia's revised filing against Facebook was lodged on 11 April, the same day that the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, lost an appeal against an earlier settlement with Facebook, which granted them $20m in cash and $45m in the firm's shares.

The brothers, whose fight with Zuckerberg was dramatised in the Hollywood movie The Social Network, are appealing that ruling at the US Supreme Court. ®

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