CHICAGO — The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has sued its a former IT manager, saying he created a "back door" to their website, and then used it to destroy the company's online presence after he left the organization.
The Council on Tall Buildings filed a complaint on Feb. 8 in Cook County Circuit Court against Derek A.M. Pollard, alleging the defendant breached an employment agreement by misappropriating, using and destroying organization property both before and after his employment ended.
According to the complaint, in July 2018, the Council hired Pollard as its Information Technology Support and Digital Platforms Manager. Plaintiff claims defendant agreed he would have a "fiduciary responsibility" to act in the "best interests" of the Council.
However, plaintiff claims it discovered Pollard had created a secret backdoor account and used it to continue to exercise administrative privileges over plaintiff's website after he was no longer working for the Council, and used this improper access to sabotage and delete the council's website and website backup files.
The plaintiff requests a trial by jury and seeks compensatory, incidental and consequential damages of more than $30,000, injunctive relief, and other relief. The plaintiff is represented by attorney George Sax of Scharf Banks Marmor LLC in Chicago.
Cook County Circuit Court Case No. 19-CH-01703.