Delivering on her communication to Qyral consultants a few days ago, founder Hanieh Sigari has sued husband Dariusz Banasik.

Sigari’s lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of California on March 24th, names Banasik and up to ten unknown John Does as defendants.

Across eight causes of action, Sigari has accused Banasik of:

  • computer fraud
  • civil racketeering
  • computer tampering
  • false personation
  • tortious interference
  • breach of fiduciary duty and
  • unfair competition

Beginning on or around March 22nd, Sigari claims Banasik (right) locked her out of Qyral’s systems.

[Banasik] illegally and without proper authority:

(1) took control of and locked Plaintiff out of all of Qyral’s I.T. infrastructure, including its Google Administrator panel, domain name, Shopify account, phone numbers, email accounts, and all other electronic assets;

(2) shut off Plaintiff’s mobile phone number and two-factor authentication, thereby preventing her from making or receiving calls or text messages, and preventing her from resetting her passwords and interacting with various service providers;

(3) sent out a false, defamatory “announcement” stating that Plaintiff had been removed from her position with Qyral for purported breaches of fiduciary duty;

(4) purported to fire a number of company employees and contractors;

(5) announced that the Facebook group (still controlled by Plaintiff) was no longer authoritative and should be considered compromised;

(6) started transferring an as-yet unknown amount of money out of the business accounts; and

(7) changed the account used for the company’s business deposits to one under his control.

Sigari claims Banasik did the above to damage Qyral and destroy her personal reputation.

Defendant Dariusz Banasik … had a minimal role with Qyral but who inserted himself into its Information Technology matters by offering casual assistance to Plaintiff over the years she was running the company.

Plaintiff, as a non-technical person and then being married to Defendant, agreed to accept the Information Technology assistance without offering Defendant a role in her company, and she trusted Defendant.

Defendant abused this trust in order to execute a plan that must have taken months to prepare, resulting in the illegal lock-out of Plaintiff from her own company.

In researching for BehindMLM’s recently published Qyral review, we noted Banasik was cited as Qyral’s “Executive Chair”.

A letter of demand seeking reversal of Banasik’s March 22nd conduct was sent on March 23rd, “to which there has been no response”.

Sigari further alleges;

All of this was in violation of the law, specifically the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which is a Federal criminal statute
that prohibits exactly Defendant’s conduct.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Sigari recently filed for divorce. As part of those proceedings, multiple Temporary Restraining Orders have been granted.

Without going into specifics, Sigari alleges Banasik’s conduct violates those orders.

While Banasik has yet to file a response to Sigari’s lawsuit, his conduct suggests an alleged affair might have been a driving factor.

In the midst of locking Sigari out of her Qyral accounts, Banasik

sent a mass email to Plaintiff’s family accusing her of having an affair and providing contact information for the alleged romantic partner.

One would hope there’s more to Banasik’s claim of Sigari engaging in “alleged fiduciary breaches”, because “my wife slept with some guy” is otherwise probably going to get obliterated in court.

In her prayer for relief, Sigari is seeking:

  • at least ten million in damages
  • additional punitive damages
  • a declaration from the court certifying that she is “the rightful CEO and manager” of Qyral and
  • a permanent injunction against Banasik

On the same day her Complaint was filed (March 24th), Sigari also filed for an ex-parte Temporary Restraining Order against Banasik.

Stay tuned for updates as we continue to follow the case.

 

Update 26th April 2024 – Dariusz Banasik has filed his answer to Sigari’s Complaint. A countersuit has also been filed.