LV company sues defecting employees

Monday, Nov. 29, 1999 | 11:08 a.m.

NOS Communications of Las Vegas is seeking a court order against five former employees, IXC Communications Services Inc. and its subsidiary Eclipse Telecommunications Inc. of Henderson, prohibiting them from entering its premises, soliciting its employees and customers, accessing its computer network and using its proprietary business information.

In a Clark County District Court suit, NOS, a local and long distance telecommunications services, mail and freight services provider, alleged its five former employees obtained confidential customer lists and accounts information, documents and daily sales reports allegedly in exchange for compensation and employment with its rival Eclipse.

The suit said its five former employees -- John Madera, Maria Dinard, Nathan Silverman, Andre Pitts and Robert Earp also known as Taj Ahmad -- are now employed by Eclipse and allegedly tried to divert NOS's customers to Eclipse and allegedly made false and disparaging statements about NOS's products and services.

NOS alleged Earp distributed literature claiming NOS overcharged for services, double-billed its customers, billed for services that aren't provided and billed for telephone numbers that didn't exist.

NOS also alleged Madera said NOS charged its customers one minute for every 20 seconds of phone use and that he allegedly said he saw NOS cheating its customers "beyond belief." NOS said Madera had allegedly said NOS opened a new company every three to four months under a different name to avoid being shut down.

Eclipse could not be reached for comment.