© 2014 The Texas Lawbook.
By Natalie Posgate
Staff Writer for The Texas Lawbook
(May 8) – A former employee of Dallas-based Genesco Sports Enterprises, Inc. claims his old bosses made knowingly false statements about him to Dallas County prosecutors in an effort to fraudulently help the company win a separate civil lawsuit against its former employee.
Sidney White, in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Dallas County District Court, accuses Genesco owner John Tatum and his company of providing false information to the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office in 2011 – information that led to White being arrested, indicted and put on trial for allegedly stealing trade secrets.
A Dallas jury exonerated White of all charges on March 7, 2014.
“White now seeks redress against Genesco and Tatum, whose malicious actions resulted in White undergoing a two and one-half year ordeal of financial hardship, loss of reputation and lost earnings,” the lawsuit says.
Tatum and his lawyers could not be reached for comment.
Genesco sued White in June 2011, claiming that the former employee violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and misappropriated trade secrets by copying sensitive and confidential information from Genesco’s corporate server “for his own use or use by others” on a personal USB drive before leaving the company.
By doing so, Genesco claimed White breached his employment agreement that said he would not use or disclose any company confidential information during or after his employment.
“Defendant’s downloading of the proprietary information was clearly motivated by a desire to use the information for his own benefit and/or the benefit of others at a later date,” the June 20, 2011 petition said.
Genesco asked U.S. District Judge David Godbey to issue a temporary restraining order on White, but White’s lawsuit said Judge Godbey denied the request after White tendered all data Genesco claimed to be confidential.
In the 10-page lawsuit filed Thursday, White claims that Genesco and Tatum prompted a “strategic arrest” on White in 2011 “in a purported attempt to bully” White and “allegedly gain leverage in the pending civil litigation against White.”
The lawsuit alleges that Genesco knew by June 29, 2011 that White had tendered the data to federal court, but it still proceeded to pursue criminal charges in July 2011 as an “ulterior motive” to bolster Genesco’s civil lawsuit against White.
It also claims that Genesco failed to inform the DA’s office that Genesco’s motion for a TRO had been denied.
White’s lawyers said he did not name the DA’s office as a defendant because it relied on the false and incomplete information Genesco and Tatum provided and that White has not asked the DA’s office to investigate Genesco and Tatum for providing knowingly false information to law enforcement.
“Whatever the DA’s office may decide to do is a separate matter and Sidney is staying out of that,” said Dallas attorney Jonathan Childers, one of White’s lawyers. “Sidney’s concern is obtaining civil relief in order to right the wrongs committed by Genesco and Tatum.”
Childers said the false and incomplete information Genesco provided to the DA’s office was “based upon a flawed and botched investigation” that produced no evidence of White taking the vast majority of files that Genesco and Tatum claimed he stole.
Childers said the federal civil case is still pending but will be abated due to the completion of the criminal proceeding.
Thursday’s lawsuit is pending in Judge Carlos Cortez’s court in the 44th Judicial District.
Childers and Michael Hurst, both partners at the Dallas law firm Gruber Hurst Johansen Hail Shank, serve as White’s counsel in the lawsuit filed Thursday.
Dallas Bell Nunnally & Martin partner Jay Wallace was the lead lawyer for Genesco in its 2011 federal civil proceedings.
Dallas lawyer Barry Sorrels led the criminal defense matters for White.
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