# Go big, or go home

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-big-or-go-home/638991>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [October 27, 2012, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-big-or-go-home/638991 "2012-10-27T00:39:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ducati](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@ducati](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ducati)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-big-or-go-home/638991/1 "2012-10-27T00:39:58Z")

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You have to admit, this guy has Texas-sized balls.

“Your honor, Mark said I could have half of The Facebook. Really.”  
Ceglia is accused of doctoring, fabricating and destroying evidence to support a fraudulent federal lawsuit **claiming he was promised a 50 percent share in Facebook** , according to the criminal complaint unsealed in New York federal court on Friday.

> **[Facebook 'owner' accused of billion-dollar fraud](https://www.foxnews.com/tech/facebook-owner-accused-of-billion-dollar-fraud)**
>
> A former associate of Facebook-founder Mark Zuckerberg was arrested on Friday on charges stemming from his multi-billion dollar scheme to defraud the social media company.

Somewhere on my desk is my great-great-great-great-great grandfather’s receipt for Illinois when he bought it from some Indians. A lot of you will have to move when I find it!

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**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-big-or-go-home/638991/2 "2012-10-27T00:50:54Z")

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> [@ducati](#):
>
> Somewhere on my desk is my great-great-great-great-great grandfather’s receipt for Illinois when he bought it from some Indians. A lot of you will have to move when I find it!

There actually was a guy who did this. But it was Arizona he claimed was his.

James Reavis arrived in the Arizona Territory in 1880 and had a bunch of documents that showed he was the owner of a sizable land grant (almost twenty thousand square miles) issued by the Mexican government before Mexico ceded the territory to the United States. And under the terms of the treaty between the two countries, the United States was supposed to honor all pre-existing land grants. So Reavis said the land was still rightfully his.

His story was convincing enough that he was able to collect over five million dollars from people who wanted to settle the title on their land.

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**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-big-or-go-home/638991/3 "2012-10-27T01:47:38Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Investigators searched Ceglia’s hard drives and found the original 2003 contract, which did not mention Facebook or any promise regarding future profits. They found that the pages of the contract submitted in Ceglia’s lawsuit had different spacing and columns and margins between the first and second pages—evidence prosecutors say shows that it was doctored.

He would have gotten away with it, too. . . if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids!

On a related point, I once had a client who claimed he developed the auction software that’s the foundation of e-Bay and he kept vowing to sue them so he’d get his rightful share. He never did.