Company claims Iowa workers conspired to take over highly classified government work

A group of western Iowa businessmen are being sued over an alleged “brazen and coordinated scheme” to take over highly classified work for the federal government by poaching employees and stealing trade secrets from their employer.

Oaklea Simpson Security, a Westminster, Maryland, company, is suing several former employees of its Iowa office in Mills County, including Douglas Grave of Glenwood; Rex Thomas of Treynor; Wesley Carter of Malvern; Steven Douglas of Omaha, and Timothy Sullivan of Chesapeake, Virginia. Corporate co-defendants include the newly formed CODA Data Sciences Inc. of Omaha and Intuitive Research and Technology Corporation, or IRTC, of Texas.

Oaklea is alleging the defendants, while still employed by Oaklea, participated in a “brazen and coordinated scheme” to secretly form CODA Data Sciences as a competing business. The defendants are accused of systematically misappropriating “vast amounts” of Oaklea’s confidential information and trade secrets while orchestrating a mass resignation of 24 Oaklea employees and diverting to CODA a multimillion-dollar government contract once held by Oaklea.

According to the lawsuit, the individual defendants held high-level government security clearances and occupied positions of “extraordinary trust and responsibility.” The defendants were allegedly responsible for managing and overseeing Oaklea’s classified work under a subcontract with IRTC. According to the lawsuit, that work includes “critical geospatial intelligence and data analytics capabilities” used by U.S. Navy ships.

The lawsuit claims the defendants routed hundreds of confidential and trade secret Oaklea materials, including some documents classified as “top secret,” to personal email accounts, recruited their co-workers to join their new venture, and positioned themselves to replace Oaklea on IRTC’s subcontract.

The lawsuit alleges that on April 30, 2026, one day before the subcontract was set to renew, the defendants “executed their scheme” when the 24 Oaklea employees resigned in a coordinated mass departure, and the defendants immediately assumed performance of the same work through their newly formed competing business, CODA.

Grave, who according to the lawsuit leased office space to Oaklea on the second floor of a rural Mills County building located at 60397 Kidd Road in Glenwood, is accused in the lawsuit of misusing his landlord position to lock Oaklea out of the facility. Oaklea claims that when it was finally able to recover company-issued laptops, it discovered that several employees had wiped the devices clean of all data.

The lawsuit alleges IRTC participated in this scheme by coordinating with the individual defendants to divert the subcontract from Oaklea to CODA.

Court records indicate IRTC serves as the prime contractor on a project called the Geospatial Intelligence Unified Naval Streaming System, or GUNSS, under which it subcontracted work to Oaklea.

Oaklea says it provides services and support to clients across the defense, homeland security, intelligence, and law enforcement sectors of the federal government, including the United States Strategic Command.

Founded in 2009, Oaklea says it is largely comprised of former military service members specializing in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance sensors. The lawsuit alleges that some of the work it has performed over the years is classified at the “top secret” level, requiring many Oaklea employees to hold top-level government security clearances.

The lawsuit alleges Grave was hired by Oaklea in September 2017 and that by February 2026, he held the title of vice president for data science and had “access to virtually all” of Oaklea’s trade secrets and confidential information for the relevant programs.

Beginning in late 2025, the lawsuit alleges, the individual defendants exchanged numerous emails concerning their development of CODA and also used Oaklea resources to build what the lawsuit calls a “comprehensive trove” of sensitive information so they’d be “able to stand up CODA as a turnkey replacement” for Oaklea.

“This was not ordinary employee turnover or lawful competition,” the lawsuit alleges. “It was the calculated exploitation of positions of trust to gut a company from the inside.”

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, alleges misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment and civil conspiracy. It seeks a preliminary and permanent injunction enjoining the defendants from performing any of the work previously performed by Oaklea under its contract and using or disclosing any of Oaklea’s trade secrets and confidential information.

It also seeks compensatory damages for lost profits and business opportunities, as well as punitive damages for willful, wanton, and malicious conduct.

The Iowa Capital Dispatch was not able to reach officials at CODA, or the lead attorney representing the defendants, for comment. The lead attorney’s co-counsel declined to comment on the case.