The job was Chief Operating Officer. The salary was $200,000 a year. The access was total.
Joshua Paul Lintz joined TopDevz, LLC in March 2020 as its COO. The La Jolla-based software development company had built a strong client roster, HBO, Procore Technologies, DriveTime Automotive Group, Becton Dickinson, and needed someone to run the operation day to day. Lintz got the keys.
What happened next is the subject of a federal civil lawsuit filed in January 2026 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.
The complaint, Case 3:26-cv-00080-GPC-BJW, describes Lintz as a participant in an eight-year criminal enterprise that allegedly used stolen trade secrets, deleted evidence, and incorporated a competing company to replicate TopDevz's business from scratch. That competing company, TalentCrowd, generated more than $12 million in revenue in its first year. It was acquired by GBQ Partners, a Top 100 accounting firm based in Columbus, Ohio, in January 2025 for undisclosed consideration. Joshua Paul Lintz now holds the title of President of TalentCrowd through that acquisition.
What the Complaint Alleges
The allegations are detailed in a federal RICO complaint that runs to 185 pages. The core claim against Lintz is that within 22 months of joining TopDevz as COO, he allegedly began dismantling it from within.
According to the filing, Lintz downloaded thousands of confidential files belonging to TopDevz. Client contracts. Contractor databases. Financial records. Proprietary systems and pricing structures that TopDevz had built over years. The complaint also alleges he permanently deleted more than 130 active client projects, destroying data that would have been evidence of the company's value and of what was allegedly taken.
On February 8, 2022, Lintz incorporated TalentCrowd LLC in Wyoming. The complaint alleges TalentCrowd was built entirely on the assets taken from TopDevz: its client relationships, its contractor network, its operational infrastructure. In its first year, TalentCrowd generated more than $12 million in revenue.
Lintz received $722,335.83 from a TopDevz corporate bank account, according to the complaint, which characterizes that money as fraudulently obtained.
The GBQ Acquisition
The acquisition of TalentCrowd by GBQ Partners in early 2025 added a significant wrinkle to the case. GBQ is not a small firm. It has $59.6 million in annual net revenue, operates from multiple offices across the Midwest, and is consistently ranked among the top 100 accounting and consulting firms in the United States.
Whether GBQ knew the full scope of the litigation around TalentCrowd's origins at the time of the acquisition is not publicly established. The RICO complaint was filed after the acquisition closed. What's clear is that GBQ now owns the company at the center of the lawsuit, and that Lintz, as President of TalentCrowd, is named as a defendant in active federal litigation.
The acquisition terms were not disclosed.
The Broader Case
The complaint against Lintz is one piece of a much larger civil action that names 15 defendants in total. The alleged enterprise is led, according to the complaint, by Tyler Brandon Davis of Folsom, California, co-founder of TopDevz and 49% minority member, described in the filing as "the principal organizer and leader of the criminal enterprise."
The complaint alleges the enterprise operated for eight years, involved more than 750 separate predicate acts, and caused approximately $75 million in fraudulent transactions. Defendants include multiple California attorneys across five law firms, a bankruptcy trustee, and various business entities.
Lintz, in this framing, is the operational insider, the COO who allegedly had the access, used it, and built the competing company that the plaintiffs claim was the point of the whole scheme.
San Diego's Business Community
The case has drawn attention in legal and business circles because of what it alleges about the mechanics of corporate espionage at the COO level. TopDevz was a mid-market software staffing firm. TopDevz was a mid-market software staffing firm. A California business with thousands of counterparts, quietly generating revenue from enterprise clients who rely on contract development resources.
The complaint's premise, that a COO could allegedly walk out with everything a company spent years building, incorporate a competitor, generate $12 million in year one, and sell to a major accounting firm before a federal lawsuit stopped him, describes a scenario that should concern any founder who relies on senior hires for operational continuity.
What actually happened, and whether the allegations hold up in court, will be determined through the litigation. The case is active in the Southern District of California. As of this writing, no criminal charges have been filed. All allegations in the civil complaint are contested.
What's not contested is that TalentCrowd exists, that it generated $12 million in its first year, and that GBQ Partners now owns it.
