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By 14 April 2011 | Categories: news

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Just as Facebook's legal team successfully took care of matters in the recent Winklevoss twins claim to Facebook's ownership, a fresh legal challenge has landed on their doorstep.

New York firewood salesman Paul Ceglia filed a revised complaint against the social network this week in a federal court in Buffalo, New York, claiming that he is entitled to ownership of half of the company.

He alleges that he has email exchanges with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dating back to 2003 which proves that the two discussed terms of a contract and the early development of a site called “The Face Book”.

Facebook's legal team is contesting the claim, with company lawyer Orin Snyder telling Bloomberg, “This is a fraudulent lawsuit brought by a convicted felon, and we look forward to defending it in court.”

The now wealthy Zuckerberg worked for Ceglia back in 2003 when he was hired to do some computer coding work for him, with Zuckerberg being paid $1000 for the work, a trifle to the $55 billion Facebook is estimated to be worth today.

Ceglia claims that he later established a contract with Zuckerberg in April 2003 to design and build a website called “The Face Book” by 1 January 2004, with the deal alleging that Ceglia was entitled to a 50 percent stake in the business.

Ceglia has also been in the court's eye in recent years due to unrelated legal problems with his own wood-pellet fuel company, with claims that Ceglia lied to customers and failed to deliver goods in the past.

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