MARTINSBURG — Global Science & Technology has filed a lawsuit alleging that nearly its entire West Virginia state and local government IT team secretly conspired to steal proprietary data, sabotage company systems and move the company’s government-contracting work to a newly formed competitor, NSG-WV LLC.
The complaint names NSG-WV, its president Wade Linger and more than a dozen former employees as defendants, asserting violations of federal and state trade-secret laws, computer-crime statutes, breach of contract and civil conspiracy, according to the Nov. 21 complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia at Martinsburg.
GST alleges that the defendants spent months planning an “egregious, ongoing and concerted” operation to misappropriate sensitive business information and transition GST’s West Virginia government clients to NSG-WV.
The plan began shortly after GST was acquired by Government Technical Service Corporation (GTSC) on Sept. 15, according to the suit.
Within three days of the sale, GST alleges that its Director of State Programs, Dale “Cannon” Wadsworth, informed GTSC leadership that the entire senior team intended to resign unless GTSC agreed to sell GST’s West Virginia government-services unit, which Wadsworth said he had previously explored with others.
GST leaders attempted to meet with the West Virginia team, but the complaint states the employees refused, claiming they had already decided to “separate from GTSC/GST” and wished for leadership to negotiate a sale to Wadsworth.
Despite this early standoff, the complaint says the team later appeared to cooperate during integration efforts, attending meetings and accepting company resources, including vehicles and support.
Behind the scenes, GST alleges, the employees were working together to build NSG-WV and move GST’s operations to the new firm.
According to forensic records cited in the complaint, attempts to add NSG-WV email accounts to GST’s internal systems began as early as Sept. 30.
By October, Wadsworth had emailed Linger using his GST account, a communication that GST claims was meant to test the new NSG-WV infrastructure.
Between early and mid-November, the complaint alleges, the employees systematically changed their GST technician email accounts to @nsgwv.com addresses, altered logins across cybersecurity and remote-access systems, downloaded full lists of GST-managed customer devices and changed administrative email addresses for GST’s SonicWall VPN, Synology data-security platform and Amazon Web Services accounts.
Several defendants allegedly used GST accounts to order products shipped to NSG-WV-associated locations and created new remote-access technicians under NSG-WV identities.
On Nov. 14, eleven employees allegedly submitted identical resignation letters. Three days later, Wadsworth informed GST leadership that the entire team had resigned.
The complaint states that, even after resigning, several defendants continued logging into GST systems, accessing customer devices, sending support responses, modifying distribution lists, forwarding customer service tickets to personal email accounts and purchasing software licenses using GST billing information but NSG-WV email addresses.
GST further alleges that on Nov. 17, Linger emailed West Virginia government customers falsely claiming GST had been sold to “a private equity group” and implying the West Virginia business would leave the state.
Linger told customers that NSG-WV had hired all former GST technical staff and would “be available to support you while contractual issues are formalized,” a statement GST claims was based on improperly obtained access to GST systems and trade secrets.
The complaint cites eleven identical resignation letters, customer ticket forwarding records, system-access logs, email changes and screenshots of online orders as evidence of a coordinated effort to divert GST’s business.
GST asserts that the employees violated confidentiality, non-solicitation, and trade-secret clauses in their employment contracts, and that their actions have caused GST to lose customers, profits, goodwill and operational capabilities.
GST seeks monetary damages as well as preliminary and permanent injunctive relief.
GST brings claims including conspiracy, breach of fiduciary duty, conversion, tortious interference, violations of the West Virginia Computer Crime and Abuse Act, the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
The company states that its damages exceed $75,000 and continue to grow as it attempts to restore and secure its systems.
The company is represented by Max C. Gottlieb and Andrew J. Tessman of Hissman Forman Donovan Ritchie in Charleston; and Nicholas D. SanFilippo and Raymond D. Jackson of Greenberg Traurig.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia case number: 1:25-cv-00114
