Connectu Twins Want Out of Facebook Settlement

Sam Gustin thinks that Mark Zuckerberg might be able to relate to Michael Corleone in the The Godfather: Part III right about know: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"

The "they" in this case are those pesky Winklevoss twins, who accused Zuckerberg of having ripped off the idea for Facebook from them when they were all students at Harvard.

Facebook and the twins, whose own social networking site is called ConnectU, reportedly settled the dispute in April, but now the twins are claiming to have found a "smoking gun" and want out of the deal.

ConnectU says a forensic investigator has discovered instant messages on Facebook's computers that shed new light on the case.

"If we are forced into a settlement, the next step is going to be a fraud claim," ConnectU's attorney, John Hornick, told U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock on Tuesday.

There's just one problem. ConnectU doesn't know what the evidence is, because the investigator, Jeff Parmet, was prohibited from disclosing anything he found that was not computer code.

"Parmet had, nevertheless, obliquely given ConnectU's attorneys reason to believe that there were documents, other than produced program code, on the Facebook hard drives relevant to the case which had not been disclosed," Woodlock said Tuesday.

Still, Woodlock was skeptical of ConnectU's position, saying that it amounted to "buyer's remorse."

"The parties chose to do what they did based on imperfect knowledge of what the outcome of the case might be," Woodlock said. "You knew at the time you entered into the agreement it wasn't complete."

For Zuckerberg, this case simply refuses to die, and he may wish he could make the twins an offer they can't refuse.