Around the time Mark Zuckerberg was starting to work on Facebook in 2003 out of his Harvard University dorm room, the now-billionaire had done some contract programming work for StreetFax.com, a company founded by Paul Ceglia.

Years later, Ceglia produced a contract between Zuckerberg and himself that described a 50 percent stake in Facebook. The only problem, Ceglia may have forged that contract, the value of which is of course now in the billions of dollars. Such an act is a federal crime, which is exactly what the U.S. government is trying to prove in its prosecution of Ceglia in Manhattan federal court.

In an expected yet still surprising move considering Zuckerberg’s status as a billionaire head of a public company, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Frey said the government is planning to subpoena Zuckerberg to testify before U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter in New York federal court, according to the Wall Street Journal. The trial is set for Nov. 17.

Ironically, Ceglia brought the legal trouble on himself when he filed a civil lawsuit in 2010 against Zuckerberg and Facebook in Buffalo, N.Y., accusing Zuckerberg of reneging on a contract between the two that gave Ceglia a 50 percent ownership stake in the then-fledgling social network.

Zuckerberg and his company flatly denied that any such contract ever existed and Ceglia’s lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge in Buffalo in March. Then, federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged Ceglia in 2012 with forging documents as part of that case, including the contract and emails with Zuckerberg.

Carter, the federal judge presiding over the case in Manhattan, ruled against Ceglia’s lawyers recent motion that would have required Zuckerberg to disclose his cell phone, email and bank records at Facebook from 2003 through 2004, on the grounds that they were too broad. He also turned Ceglia’s team away on a request for Zuckerberg’s Harvard email account records and any disciplinary records against him for unauthorized use of the university’s network.