OneTrust Seeks To Add CrossCountry Mortgage And CEO To Poaching Case

OneTrust Home Loans is seeking to expand its federal lawsuit alleging trade secret misappropriation and defamation, asking a judge for permission to add CrossCountry Mortgage LLC (CCM) and its president, Ronald Leonhardt, as defendants.

In a motion filed Oct. 14, 2025, OneTrust said it “seeks to add Ronald Leonhardt and CrossCountry Mortgage LLC as additional parties and to incorporate related factual allegations discovered since the filing of the First Amended Complaint.” The motion is scheduled for hearing Nov. 13, 2025, before U.S. District Judge Marilyn L. Huff in San Diego. 

The case, filed in August, centers on claims that former branch manager Broch Lassig and mortgage coach Rick Ruby, along with Ruby’s company The Core Training, Inc., allegedly misused confidential business information belonging to OneTrust. According to the complaint, Lassig shared OneTrust’s internal profit-and-loss statements with Ruby and The Core while employed by the company. OneTrust claims those documents contained “highly confidential trade secret information,” including internal cost structures, loan margins, vendor expenses, and corporate yield targets. 

Ruby, who also operates several CrossCountry Mortgage branches, allegedly required coaching clients to share their employers’ financial information. During a July 19, 2023 deposition in Utah state court, Ruby testified that he personally reviewed clients’ profit-and-loss statements: “I do an interview. I look at their tax returns. I look at their bank statements. I personally interview the high-end clients. … I do look at their P&Ls. I look at their personal tax returns. I look at their full financial statements.”

However, OneTrust claims it “did not authorize Defendant Lassig to disclose its confidential and trade secret information, including profit and loss statements, to Defendants Ruby or Core,” and further alleged that other mortgage lenders would not have consented to similar disclosures. 

Disputed Voicemails

According to the complaint, Ruby also left several voicemails in April 2022 for loan officer Scott Evans, who was then employed by CrossCountry and being recruited by OneTrust. In those messages, Ruby allegedly urged Evans not to join OneTrust. One recording cited in the complaint included the following remarks:

“Scott, Rick Ruby. That you are looking at all this s*** without talking to me, and I got to hear it from other people is ridiculous. … You’re finally making big money. You probably made $7–10 million last year. … You call me back ASAP. Stop talking to a bunch of idiots and talk to me.”

The filing notes that Ruby acknowledged the voicemail during his deposition, saying: “Let me have that voicemail to put on my website. I'd get a lot of business out of that voicemail. Sounds like me.”

In another voicemail that was included in the filing as evidence, Ruby said: “Realtors are fools. They’re bad businessmen. They don’t make no money. Broke little mortgage guys can’t do nothing, ’cause they’re broke.”

Allegedly, Ruby also told Evans that “OneTrust Mortgage is not a very good mortgage company. That’s where Broch Lassig worked. You should call Broch Lassig and see what his opinion of it was. … They didn’t honor any of their agreement.” Ruby testified that he formed his opinion of OneTrust based on “some from Broch Lassig,” and added, “I had a bad experience with them years ago.”

According to the complaint, Evans joined OneTrust for roughly six weeks before returning to CrossCountry Mortgage. OneTrust claims the short tenure of Evans and his team caused “great financial harm and reputational damage.”

New Allegations

According to the Oct. 14 motion, evidence obtained “through discovery in related proceedings, including the Evans Arbitration and the Utah Action,” revealed “defamatory comments made by CCM President Ronald Leonhardt evidencing animus and coordination with existing defendants.” 

Attorney Scott Harkless, Esq., representing the plaintiff, OneTrust, further explained the term animus and how it's applicable in this case: "This notion of animus is of a demonstrated hostile intent towards OneTrust exceeds what you would expect [of] fair-minded competitors. Businesses always compete with one another, and certainly mortgage lenders compete with one another for business. But what is distinct is the idea that you will decimate them... or destroy them. And that, to me, suggests animus."

The filing claims that Leonhardt’s alleged remarks, coupled with his coordination with other defendants, demonstrate bias or malice that contributed to what OneTrust characterizes as a “coordinated campaign” to damage its reputation and business.

The proposed Second Amended Complaint would add several new claims, including defamation per se, injurious falsehood/trade libel, and deceptive trade practices under Ohio law, as well as tortious interference with contract, aiding and abetting misappropriation of trade secrets, and unfair competition under federal law. 

Ruby and The Core Training consented to the amendment on Oct. 9, 2025, while Lassig declined on Oct. 10, according to the filing. OneTrust’s attorneys argued that the refusal “required Plaintiff to incur unnecessary fees to obtain relief the Rules clearly favor.” 

The court has not yet ruled on the motion.