Hiring a rival's star staff just got riskier - one CEO now faces personal RICO exposure
A federal appeals court has revived a racketeering case against a CEO accused of growing his company by poaching rivals' staff - and their secrets.
The decision, issued June 9, 2026, by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, reverses a lower court and puts EnvTech, Inc.'s lawsuit against Patrick DeBusk back in play. DeBusk is the founder, chairman and CEO of USA DeBusk LLC, an industrial cleaning company. EnvTech is suing him under the federal racketeering law known as RICO, which targets ongoing patterns of criminal conduct.
Strip away the refinery chemistry and this is a hiring story. EnvTech alleges that the company's regular play is to hire competitors' key employees and use their proprietary knowledge - all at DeBusk's direction.
According to the complaint, two longtime EnvTech employees, one of them a former part-owner, left for USAD carrying knowledge of EnvTech's confidential cleaning formula. Both, the filing says, were bound by confidentiality obligations, and one had signed a written agreement not to use EnvTech's confidential information. The complaint names them as alleged non-party co-conspirators; neither is a defendant in this case.
The court drew a sharp line around what it actually decided. It did not find DeBusk did anything wrong. It held only that EnvTech had "plausibly alleged" enough to survive dismissal - the stage where a judge accepts a plaintiff's...
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