Late CEO of Apple Steve Jobs' words were cited to rule that Apple is guilty of colluding with five major book publishers to raise prices of electronic books, violating federal anti-trust law.

On Wednesday, the U.S. District Court in Manhattan found Apple guilty of playing a "central role" to drive-up the prices of e-books. Reuters reports that District Judge Denise Cote found "compelling evidence" that implicates Apple in the conspiracy hatched with five publishers.

Jobs' email exchanges and transcripts of his interviews with biographer Walter Isaacson were presented as crucial evidence in the court, according to an AP report.

The U.S. department of justice had pointed to an exchange of emails between Jobs and James Murdoch of News Corporation to argue the case against Apple. The excerpt from one of the emails that Jobs sent to Murdoch:

"Throw in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this to create a real mainstream e-books market at $12.99 and $14.99."

iPad maker Apple's e-book agreement with the five publishers, Penguin, Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Macmillan, was part of its strategy to beat the dominant player in the e-books market, Amazon. The book publishers, in 2010, asked Amazon to raise the prices of e-books on its Web site. The market leader refused initially but had to ultimately cave-in, forgoing its right to keep the prices of e-books at $9.99. The online retailers in some cases raised the prices of e-book from $9.99 to $12.99 or $14.99, according to Reuters' report.

Jobs told his biographer as cited in another Cnet report that how the publishers "went to Amazon and said, 'You're going to sign an agency contract or we're not going to give you the books." The late CEO was referring to Macmillan CEO John Sargent's trip to Seattle to deliver "an ultimatum to Amazon," according to Judge Cote.

Prosecutors had also presented an unsent email written by Jobs to Eddy Cue, a senior vice president at Apple. Cue was negotiating ebook contracts with major publishers in late 2009 and early 2010, ahead of the launch of iPad, according to AFP.

Excerpt of the email as cited in AFP report:

"I can live with this as long as they move Amazon to the agent model too for new releases for the first year."

"If they don't, I'm not sure we can be competitive."

Cnet reports that book publishers increased the prices by shunning the traditional wholesale model of pricing and using the agency model. The agency model allows publishers to set customer price of the books, while in the wholesale model, the publishers decide the retail price and retailers set the customer sales price.

In April, 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice had filed a lawsuit against Apple and the five publishers. In its complaint, it had said, "Apple facilitated the publisher defendants' collective effort to end retail price competition by coordinating their transition to an agency model across all retailers."

Apple has been steadfast in its claim that it has done no wrong. "Apple did not conspire to fix e-book pricing and we will continue to fight against these false accusations," said Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr.

The five publishers have settled their cases. According to BBC report, Penguin settled its case for $75m; Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster created a $69m fund for refunds to consumers, while Macmillan settled for $26m.