Industrial Components sues two former employees for fraud

WAYNE -- Industrial Components is suing two of its former employees after it claims they organized a fraudulent company called Sylatec.

Jonathan Price and Scott McComas were employed at Industrial Components as engineers until July 2007, according to a complaint filed June 9 in Wayne Circuit Court.

The plaintiff claims Price and McComas worked on a particular project called the Bucyrus Project, which served the needs of a mining customer by developing and selling products to Wesco, who then sold the products to Bucyrus.

"Industrial Components provided maintenance and service on its equipment and systems directly to Bucyrus on an as-needed basis and the billing for such services was accomplished through Wesco," according to the suit.

In spring 2006, Price and McComas told their supervisor, Daniel Bowe, that particular components of the Bucyrus Project could only be effectively sourced by purchasing the components from a vendor identified as Sylatec, a North Carolina company, according to the suit.

The plaintiff claims pursuant to the request, it began making purchases of key components from Sylatec and did a considerable amount of business with Sylatec from 2006 until 2010.

During this time, Price and McComas "concealed from Industrial Components the key fact that Sylatec was simply a fraudulently organized company," according to the suit.

Industrial Components claims Price and McComas hid the fact that they were the owners of Sylatec, hid the true nature of Sylatec and hid the fact that the products being sourced from Sylatec were actually designed and produced by Price and McComas.

Price and McComas terminated their employment with Industrial Components in July 2007 and claimed they were taking jobs at Sylatec and represented the fictional company as it continued to do business with the plaintiff, according to the suit.

Industrial Components claims it suffered financial damages as a result of the defendants' actions.

Industrial Components is seeking compensatory and punitive damages. It is being represented by Robert R. Waters.

The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge James H. Young.

Wayne Circuit Court case number: 10-C-113