Mr. Seglia (Photo: SMH.au)

Paul Ceglia, a notorious entrepreneur who has been making claims for years that he's entitled to half of Facebook, was recently arrested by the U.S. Attorney's office on charges that he has attempted to defraud Facebook. Now, Mr. Ceglia's lawyer Dean Boland has filed to withdraw from representing him.

According to a filing obtained by TechCrunch, Mr. Boland requested to be removed as attorney from the case based on "personal reasons," but emphasized that this did not have to do with any evidence of fraud uncovered in regards to Mr. Seglia.

The filing reads:

As this court knows, this case and its pleadings are widely followed in themedia. Therefore, the undersigned feels it is important to emphasize in thestrongest terms possible, that the reasons underlying this request, provided to thecourt for its review, have nothing to do with any belief by the undersigned that Plaintiff is engaged in now or has been engaged in during the past, fraud regarding this case.The personal reasons for this request are contained in the in camera communication provided to this court and will be served by regularU.S. mail upon Mr. Ceglia once the mailing address for his current detention location is determined.

This is not the first time lawyers have withdrawn from representing Mr. Seglia. Including Mr. Boland, eight different firms have ditched him.

(facebook.com)

Facebook has been digging up fantastic dirt related to the case of Paul Ceglia, an upstate wood pellet salesman whose fascinating career included hiring Mark Zuckerberg in 2003. First, the social network revealed that Mr. Ceglia had been arrested for felony possession of mushrooms--hardly relevant, but fun!--then it was made known that one of Mr. Ceglia's attorneys, Jeffrey Lake of San Diego, specializes in medical marijuana cases.

But now that Mr. Lake is attempting to withdraw from the case, an Ohio lawyer will take over. That means another three weeks for the lawsuit which has already gone on for a year-and-a-half and burned through so many legal teams that the media is starting to lose track. (AllThingsD's Liz Gannes counts Edelson McGuire, which was talking to Mr. Ceglia but never filed anything in court; PaidContent counts Mr. Lake as no. 6. By our count, Mr. Lake was no. 4, not counting Mr. Ceglia's long-time counsel Paul Argentieri who has represented him from the beginning, making the new hire no. 5.)

And this time, the smear is ... kiddie porn!

The L.A. Times reports that in the course of testifying as an expert witness in a child pornography case, Mr. Boland created images of children in order to demonstrate the technology and how images could be manipulated. He used photos of children from the internet. The parents of the children sued him:

This week a federal court handed the plaintiffs a $300,000 summary judgment. Boland said he would appeal the decision but declined to discuss the case.

From experience, we'd bet the LAT owes a hat tip to Facebook and/or its background investigators, the "corporate spies" of Kroll Associates.