Former eTreppid employee is fined

RENO -- A federal judge has fined a Reno software designer at the center of a legal battle over the development of source codes he says have been used to help fight the war on terror.

U.S. District Judge Philip Pro ordered Dennis Montgomery on July 23 to begin paying $2,500 a day for each day he fails to deliver the special source code to his former employer, eTreppid Technologies.

The fine was disclosed in court proceedings this week in federal court in Reno and first reported in Wednesday's Reno Gazette-Journal.

Montgomery maintains he developed the code and owns it, but eTreppid insists it belongs to the company.

Montgomery and eTreppid owner Warren Trepp sued each other in 2006 after Montgomery left the company, taking the source code and hard drives.

Montgomery claims he was not being appropriately compensated for his work on computer programs. He said they have been used by the U.S. military and are worth millions of dollars.

Gov. Jim Gibbons became a target of an investigation over his relationship with Trepp and defense contracts he helped secure for eTreppid while in Congress. Both Gibbons and Trepp have denied any wrongdoing.

The case is being monitored by the Department of Defense and is the subject of a protective order over concerns about the release of sensitive information.