Bellevue web development company Minecode got into legal hot water last year for allegedly crippling the website of a client over a contract dispute. A federal court judge last April sentenced Minecode CEO P. K. Samal to 90 days of home confinement, three years' probation, community service and "moral reconation therapy" over the incident, and Minecode itself was order to pay a fine and restitution (a Minecode project manager also received a fine and probation in the case).

Now a landlord is suing Minecode for breach of contract for skipping out on an office lease. In a complaint filed Dec. 31 in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Oregon, F & K LLC alleges that a company called Enterworks and Minecode vacated offices at 330 SE Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard in Portland in early December, breaking a lease that was supposed to run until April 2012. The defendants were already two months behind in their rent, the complaint states.

F & K is requesting more than $173,000 in damages for rent, late fees, and expenses, plus an unspecified amount for utilities. I tried to get in touch with Minecode for comment, but the phone numbers listed on the company's website for its Bellevue and Portland offices were out of service. Irwin Schwartz, an attorney who represented Samal in court last year, did not immediately return a phone call.

Saltmine, a web design firm that Minecode acquired in 2008, and that lists the same Bellevue and Portland office locations as Minecode, also had phones out of service. A message to Saltmine's general email address was not returned. Saltmine lists four employees, and continues to advertise for a business development manager on its website.

U.S. Attorney Jim Lord, who prosecuted the Minecode case last year, referred questions about the company and Samal to the Seattle U.S. probation office, which did not immediately provide any information.

Enterworks, the other company named in the Oregon lawsuit, sold the Saltmine unit to Minecode, according to a March 2008 press release. An executive at Sterling, Va.-based Enterworks said the company is aware of the lawsuit but had no initial comment. John Wynn, a Portland attorney representing landlord F & K, had no official comment, pointing me to the lawsuit.

Minecode's legal troubles last year revolved around a contract dispute with Vinado, an online wine business. According to court filings, a Minecode project manager, Sandeep Verma, at Samal's direction, removed two programs from the Vinado website, and Samal later "knowingly caused the transmission of a command that deleted Vinado's website, e-mail server, and database." After the sentencing in April, Minecode indicated it planned to stay in business.

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