Ceglia v. Zuckerberg et al

Filing 562

REPLY to Response to Motion re 521 Ninth MOTION to Compel And For Other Relief filed by Facebook, Inc., Mark Elliot Zuckerberg. (Attachments: # 1 Certificate of Service)(Snyder, Orin)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
-----------------------------------PAUL D. CEGLIA,
Plaintiff,
v.
MARK ELLIOT ZUCKERBERG and
FACEBOOK, INC.,
Defendants.
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Civil Action No. 1:10-cv-00569RJA

DEFENDANTS’ REPLY MEMORANDUM OF LAW
IN SUPPORT OF THEIR NINTH MOTION TO COMPEL
In their Ninth Motion to Compel, Defendants seek an order compelling Plaintiff Paul
Ceglia to produce several responsive hard-copy documents—photocopies and printouts of his
purported contract created in June 2010—that this Court first ordered him to produce more than
fourteen months ago. In opposition, Ceglia does not deny that those documents fall squarely
within the scope of his production obligation. Rather, Ceglia now claims that he and his lawyer
Paul Argentieri destroyed all of those documents back in June 2010, and that he is therefore
unable to produce them to Defendants. See Doc. No. 535, ¶ 7; Doc. No. 536, ¶ 15.
The declarations Ceglia has provided to date contain false statements of fact1 and, in
some cases, contradict one another.2 More broadly, the Ceglia and Argentieri declarations do not

1

For example, Argentieri attests that he “personally insured [sic], with Plaintiff’s full support and
encouragement, that the electronic assets we knew contained the Street Fax images, were disclosed to
Defendants in discovery without delay.” Doc. No. 536, ¶ 22. This is both factually incorrect and absurd. As
the Court well knows, neither Argentieri nor Ceglia timely produced to Defendants the electronic assets that
contained the StreetFax Contract; rather, Ceglia initially concealed the Seagate hard drive containing the
StreetFax Contract, and produced it belatedly only after Defendants demanded it. See Doc. No. 319 at 29. Nor
did Ceglia timely produce the copies of the StreetFax Contract possessed by his attorneys and agents, such as
the copies attached to the April 13 Kasowitz Letter, the production of which Defendants sought in their granted
Sixth and Seventh Motions to Compel.

provide a clear, sufficiently detailed account of the hard-copy documents’ destruction. For
example, Argentieri attests, cryptically and evasively, that “[a]ny remaining, unused copies or
printouts, were discarded in the office trash,” without identifying which specific documents were
destroyed, the person responsible for their destruction, or the date of the destruction. Doc. No.
536, ¶ 15.
In order to efficiently resolve this matter, Defendants respectfully request that this Court
direct Ceglia to confirm, in writing and under oath, that he has produced to Defendants, or
destroyed, all hard-copies of the purported contract that he or his agents created prior to June 30,
2010. If Ceglia’s sworn account of document destruction is truthful, he should be prepared to
attest to that basic representation.
CONCLUSION
This Court should grant Defendants’ Ninth Motion to Compel and order Ceglia to
provide the sworn declaration described above.

2

For example, Argentieri initially attested in his August 21, 2012 declaration that Ceglia produced only one
photocopy of the purported contract and then scanned and converted that photocopy into an “electronic file.”
Doc. No. 484, ¶¶ 14-15. But in his September 12, 2012 declaration, Ceglia attests that he created and then
destroyed “several” such photocopies. Doc. No. 535, ¶¶ 2-3.

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Dated:

New York, New York
September 28, 2012
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Orin Snyder
Orin Snyder
Alexander H. Southwell
Matthew J. Benjamin
Amanda M. Aycock
GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
200 Park Avenue, 47th Floor
New York, NY 10166-0193
[phone]

Thomas H. Dupree, Jr.
Erik R. Zimmerman
GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
1050 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
[phone]
Terrance P. Flynn
HARRIS BEACH PLLC
726 Exchange Street
Suite 1000
Buffalo, NY 14210
[phone]

Attorneys for Defendants Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, Inc.

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