$24 BILLION is the damage done to Annapolis firm by accused embezzlers and international trade secret pirates, says litigation

AMENDED FILING IN MARYLAND SEEKS
$24 BILLION IN DAMAGES FOR THEFT OF TRADE SECRETS

Annapolis-based Compass Marketing alleges international firms swiped their assets

$24 BILLION SOUGHT

By Ken Rossignol
THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY

ANNAPOLIS, MD—Compass Marketing has amended the firm’s complaint that it was victimized by two former members of the company’s board of directors, two former top executives of the advertising firm, and two international giants who ignored warnings of Flywheel Digital’s alleged corrupt origins. The firm is laying a plump sum of $24 billion as the price for their alleged thievery.

The amended complaint states the alleged embezzlement of two Compass stock owners, Michael White, a Maryland Judge, and his brother, Daniel Joseph White, who was a Maryland prosecutor at the time of the alleged theft from the firm owned in the majority by their brother, John D. White, of Annapolis, revealed the trade secrets theft scheme.

The firm tried to win its complaint in federal court in a 2022 filing but lost when the District of Maryland Judge George Russell ruled against it. An appeal in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals failed as well to provide the relief sought by Compass Marketing.

The attorneys for Compass Marketing have been requested to explain what is different in the filing of the state court complaint. When the requested response is received, this article will be updated.
The first 61 pages of the complaint layout with much-improved clarity of the steps that Daniel White and Michael White allegedly took to defraud Compass Marketing of millions of dollars. Placing ghost employees on the company payroll and conducting a scheme that essentially used the Internal Revenue Service to launder stolen money for Daniel White and Michael White are two of the allegations raised in the complaint filed in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court.

One fake checking account was set up in what is now Shore United Bank by Michael White, who allegedly used his home address as the company address for the account. The account was used to detour funds from customers of Compass Marketing for his own benefit and that of others—all without the knowledge of CEO John White. Large sums were allegedly purloined.

Former Chief of Staff for Governor Robert Ehrlich, James C. “Chip” DiPaula, was hired by Compass as an executive after he left the administration following Ehrlich’s loss to Governor Martin O’Malley in 2006. The complaint alleged that DiPaula and Patrick Miller were both top Compass executives and used their privileged access to company trade secrets that Compass originated and developed in the intense marketing of international giants Amazon, Walmart, Campbell Soup, and other firms to set up their own company, Flywheel Digital.  

Miller and DiPaula then sold Flywheel to Ascential, a UK-based company, for a reported $400 million. Afterward, Ascential flipped the Flywheel segment to Omicron for nearly $900 million. Top executives of both Ascential and Ominicron cited the almost five to ten years it would take them to develop the infrastructure for digital marketing that Flywheel controlled and justified their purchases as being too good to pass up.

When THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY reported on DiPaula’s association with Flywheel and the 2022 litigation, DiPaula suddenly resigned from his appointment by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan as the top executive of the corruption-laden University of Maryland Medical Systems.

DiPaula cited his move to Florida as the primary reason for his sudden departure. He bought a $23 million mansion in Palm Beach and now serves on the board of directors for the Community Foundation of Palm Beach and Martin Counties and is chairman of the Philanthropy Committee.

 

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