New York resident Paul Ceglia - the man who claimed that he had signed a contract with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for a 50 percent share in the social network - was arrested on Friday, on document forgery charges in a multibillion-dollar plan to defraud Facebook.

Claiming half-ownership in the popular social network, Ceglia, 39, had filed a lawsuit against Facebook in the federal court in Buffalo, New York in 2010. In the lawsuit, Ceglia argued that Zuckerberg's plans for a social networking site had been shared with him when Zuckerberg was a Harvard University student and was working at his (Ceglia's) StreetFax firm.

Ceglia further claimed that he had made a $1000 investment in Zuckerberg's social network project; and that a 2003 contract with Zuckerberg entitled him to a 50 percent stake in Facebook.

However, with federal prosecutors and the US Postal Inspection Service noting that Ceglia had submitted fabricated evidence to support his Facebook-stake claim, Ceglia has now been arrested and charged with wire and mail fraud.

Ceglia's arrest is chiefly a result of the fact that, in March this year, Facebook attorneys released emails which had been sent by Zuckerberg to prove that Ceglia's claims of Facebook ownership were false.

Announcing criminal charges against Ceglia, US attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said that Ceglia sought "a quick pay day based on a blatant forgery;" and added: "Dressing up a fraud as a lawsuit does not immunise you from prosecution."