Legal Question in Employment Law in California

Hello -- I'm not entirely sure this belongs in "employment law", but it does involve the fraudulent activities of an employee. I hired an employee to help find new clients for my small consulting firm. It turns out that the employee never actually did any work for us and instead spent his time forging documents to "prove" that he was actually working. He forged email messages from clients, he forged contracts to show that deals were in the works, he forged offer letters for employees that never existed, and was just in general a total fraud. When I reported the matter to the police, they told me that they "get a lot of these" and don't have time to follow up on it. My total loss is more than $35k in salary plus computer equipment that the employee refuses to return. The employee also continues to use my business name in his online resume and pretends to be currently employed by me. I've already sent him a cease and desist letter, asked for for my computer equipment back, asked him to remove any reference to my business from his online resume, and also asked him to send me $10k, which is just a fraction of what he stole from me. He has ignored all demands. Not only will this person not return my equipment, but he won't even remove my business name from his online resume. Since the police refuse to help me, what can I do to prosecute this person? Thank you.


Asked on 9/12/09, 12:33 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Robert F. Cohen Law Office of Robert F. Cohen

You can file a lawsuit and request that the court issue an injunction immediately to block his use of your company name, etc. If he has harmed your company in the eyes of customers, you might have a case that's worth more than the money he stole from you -- and the computer.

You might have a legal representative also notify by certified return receipt mail the host of the website telling it that his resume contains fraudulent information and they should take it down. If they don't, the web hosting company might then face liability, as well. But be careful when writing such a letter to succinctly stick to the facts.

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Answered on 9/13/09, 8:49 pm


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