While refusing to identify the prince, the South African “displayed remarkable interest” in the lawsuit against Zuckerberg, “probing with particular focus on exactly when Mr. Zuckerberg intended to settle the case,” according to Zuckerberg’s filing. “When told no payoff was in the works, the purported lawyer expressed disappointment and disapproval.”
Voskerician’s Credibility
The Facebook chief executive is trying to undermine Voskerician’s credibility so that a judge or jury will find it hard to believe what he alleges, said David Min, a law professor at the University of California at Irvine who’s been following the court battle.
If Voskerician was “in some sort of conspiracy to inflate the apparent price, he seems far less believable in his testimony as far as other claims, such as the promise from Zuckerberg,” Min said.
While Zuckerberg’s lawyer claims the private eye is just doing his job to examine Sagorac’s “bona fides,” Voskerician attorney David Draper sees it differently.
Smear Allegation
The investigation is part of an “all-out effort to publicly smear” Sagorac, who is “irrelevant” to the lawsuit, and a diversion from the central fraud claims against Zuckerberg, Draper said in a court filing.
When Fechheimer visited the Milwaukee area to talk to Sagorac’s relatives, he told them Sagorac was “the mastermind behind a scheme to swindle money out of Mark Zuckerberg,” according to the filing. The investigator inquired whether Sagorac’s mother had been institutionalized. Sagorac filed a police report in Menlo Park, California, after his girlfriend was contacted by Fechheimer.
“I feel that my family and my girlfriend have been contacted in an effort to slander me and to intimidate me from testifying in this case,” Sagorac said in a court filing.
Patrick Gunn, a lawyer representing Zuckerberg, and Fechheimer declined to comment on the court filings. Draper also declined to comment.