Raymond James is suing a former summer season intern who the agency alleges ran a scorched earth marketing campaign of fabricated e-mail allegations and smears in opposition to his former mentors after he wasn’t employed for a full-time job.
Raymond James filed a swimsuit in Ohio federal court docket final Friday in opposition to Paul Saba, who lives in Cincinnati. The co-plaintiffs embody Timothy VanBenthuysen and Richard Redvanly, two registered reps with Raymond James understanding of the Healthcare Funding Banking Group on the agency’s Atlanta workplace.
In accordance with the swimsuit, Saba labored as an funding banking intern on the Atlanta workplace in the summertime of 2024, with Redvanly assigned as his mentor (although Saba wasn’t working in his division). Saba was notified he wouldn’t obtain a full-time supply on the finish of the internship. The intern despatched a number of emails to VanBenthuysen searching for a job within the group, to no avail.
“Within the ensuing months, and as a direct results of his frustration at not being given a full-time supply to affix the corporate, (Saba) started an e-mail marketing campaign of defaming and harassing Messrs. VanBenthuysen and Redvanly,” the criticism learn.
On Nov. 4, somebody allegedly despatched an e-mail from a fictitious account to a number of people at Raymond James, falsely accusing Redvanly of insider buying and selling.
Later that month, the reps discovered of emails despatched from fictitious accounts to quite a few folks at Raymond James and outdoors the agency, concocting false information headlines indicating VanBenthuysen and Redvanly had every been accused and convicted of rape.
The sender then focused Redvanly’s girlfriend’s employer, accusing her of insider buying and selling. The identical sender additionally created an e-mail account and despatched an e-mail to Redvanly’s girlfriend, claiming to be somebody named “Grace” who’d had an affair with Redvanly. The e-mail assailant additionally created a false e-mail thread despatched to Raymond James and different people intimating that VanBenthuysen (who’s married) and one other worker had been having an affair.
In accordance with Raymond James, it didn’t finish there; the sender (who they allege was Saba) despatched different e-mail threads with fictitious addresses, together with specific pictures and claimed he’d acquired them by mistake. In late December, he fabricated an e-mail account from VanBenthuysen’s spouse that he claimed had despatched an specific e-mail, together with a lewd photograph Saba allegedly discovered on the web.
“This malicious, harassing, defamatory, abusive and damaging conduct continued all through the month of December 2024, throughout which period the nameless attacker person a number of different impersonated e-mail accounts to harass, defame and falsely painting Plaintiffs in a sample of escalating rhetoric and repulsiveness,” the criticism learn.
The marketing campaign culminated on Dec. 30 with an e-mail account impersonating a banking worker beforehand with Raymond James that purported to ask quite a few different opponents of VanBenthuysen, Redvanly and Raymond James to affix a “bogus Neo-Nazi membership for bankers.” The e-mail named VanBenthuysen as the purpose of contact.
The mass of e-mail accusations and smears led Raymond James to shutter its Atlanta workplace on January 7 and eight to evaluate the safety threats posed by the emails, “which triggered a big enterprise loss and disruption,” in accordance with the criticism.
Nevertheless, it was the e-mail in regards to the faux neo-Nazi membership that led Raymond James’ Cyber Risk Heart to give attention to Saba because the alleged harasser. In accordance with the criticism, the metadata for a PDF attachment espousing the bigoted values of the faux membership indicated its writer was “Paul Saba.” The harasser despatched one other e-mail a number of days later impersonating Vanebenthuysen himself, with an identical PDF attachment with Saba once more named as its writer within the metadata.
The Cyber Risk Heart additionally discovered the restoration cellphone quantity listed for one of many fictitious e-mail accounts. Although it solely confirmed a partial cellphone quantity, these digits matched Saba’s cellphone quantity on his resume to Raymond James a number of months earlier.
On Jan. 6, Raymond James’ head of litigation purportedly despatched a cease-and-desist letter to Saba by e-mail (and by UPS the next day) demanding he instantly cease the alleged e-mail marketing campaign. In accordance with the criticism, Saba confirmed that night time that he acquired the letter, and Raymond James is “not conscious of any e-mail assaults” since that time.
Raymond James and attorneys for the reps wouldn’t remark past the criticism, and Saba didn’t return a request for remark previous to publication. Within the criticism, the plaintiffs search damages anticipated to exceed $75,000 and an unnamed quantity of punitive damages.
