The Owner, the HR File, and the $180 Letter: Inside the Records Surrounding IST

A federal lawsuit alleges Jacob Horwitz, IST’s president and CEO, sexually harassed a former employee while HR said it could not act “because he’s the owner.” Years later, IST’s HR manager and outside counsel fought a subcontractor’s $180 overrun with a defamation warning. The public record does not prove the allegations—but it does show how accountability at Installation & Service Technologies was routed through the man at the top.

A local mobile area company is sounding the alarm, warning others to beware of a possible scam that is taking advantage of local businesses. The owner of the local company says that his company was contacted by Heather Higgins of Installation & Service Technologies (IST) in Kansas City, Kansas. According to emails and complaints that we reviewed, Higgins began contacting local mobile area technology companies asking for assistance with replacing old-fashioned manual menu boards at a local Popeyes restaurant on Airport Boulevard and Azalea Road. Higgins allegedly was seeking local technology companies to replace the analog boards with digital menu boards, and stated the work would be done overnight.

The name is Jacob Horwitz—not “Horowitz,” a spelling that turns up unrelated people and unrelated companies. In court records and business filings, Horwitz is the founder, owner, president, and CEO of Installation & Service Technologies, Inc. (“IST”), a Kansas City-area IT deployment company founded in 1988 and acquired in 2018 by Texas-based Skinny IT Corp.

Two records from IST’s past are now part of the public paper trail. One is a federal sexual-harassment lawsuit filed by a former employee, Melissa Wilson, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas. The other is a 2013 payment dispute between IST and a subcontractor in Mobile, over a $150 flat-fee job in Mobile, Alabama—a dispute that escalated into a lawyer’s letter warning of defamation and tortious interference.

Neither record establishes a criminal conviction. Neither record proves that every allegation is true. But together they raise a pointed question about how IST did business: when the person accused of misconduct was also the owner, who at IST was empowered to say no?

The Lawsuit: “Because He’s the Owner”

Wilson began working for IST on or about Jan. 11, 2012, doing data entry and phone support, according to her complaint. She alleges that Horwitz subjected her to sexual comments and conduct almost immediately: throwing candy down her shirt, between her breasts, and looking down into her shirt. When she complained to a female management employee, the complaint alleges, the manager said: “I know Jacob has been warned before about making comments about the girl’s boobs. I’ve had to tell him that I’ll have [my boyfriend] come up here if he doesn’t stop.”

The complaint then describes a Feb. 15, 2012, encounter in a hallway. Horwitz began talking about Wilson’s hours and future employment, she alleges, then stared at her breasts and said, “Oh wow, I’m sorry. It’s hard to concentrate right now.” According to the complaint, he continued interrupting the conversation with “Where were we? What were we talking about?” while staring at her breasts.

The complaint alleges Horwitz told Wilson: “Wow, I wish you worked day shift. But, I’d be afraid I wouldn’t be able to get anything thing done. I wouldn’t be able to stop staring at your boobs. Your cleavage makes [another female employee’s] cleavage look like a nun’s!” He then licked his lips, placed a hand on his groin, and said, “Wow, I can’t concentrate,” according to the complaint.

Wilson alleges she turned for the door, and Horwitz stepped between her and her exit. He asked, “How about just a little peak?” and, with one hand touching his groin, “How about just a little touch?” She tried to step around him; he moved in front of her, barring her exit, she alleges. Then, according to the complaint, he “shoved his hand into Plaintiff’s shirt, touching her breast,” and said, “Oops. That was not appropriate.”

Wilson complained by text message to a female management employee and left the building, the complaint states. The next day, she spoke with IST’s new human-resources employee. According to the complaint, the HR employee asked how she could help, then said she could not do anything with Horwitz other than take a “statement” and file it “because he’s the owner.”

Wilson resigned and later alleged constructive discharge. She filed an EEOC charge on March 8, 2012; the EEOC mailed a right-to-sue notice on July 23, 2012. She filed suit on Oct. 15, 2012, within 90 days. The complaint brings a Title VII sexual-harassment claim against IST and state-law claims of battery and false imprisonment against IST and Horwitz.

The EEOC charge describes the same core allegations: Horwitz made sexual comments, touched her in an offensive sexual manner, and prevented her from walking away. “He barred my exit and held the door knob from the hallway to the office where other co-workers were,” the charge states. “He shoved his [hand] down my shirt and grabbed my breast.”

A January 11, 2013, district court order did not decide the merits. It treated Wilson’s summary-judgment motion as moot, allowed the defendants to file an amended answer, and left further challenges to the defendants’ Faragher/Ellerth affirmative defenses open. The free public docket excerpt does not display a final judgment, trial verdict, or settlement. The ultimate disposition of the case is not established in the public materials reviewed.

The court record uses civil theories—sexual harassment, battery, false imprisonment—not criminal charges. No criminal charge or conviction against Horwitz was found in the public records reviewed. The lawsuit is an accusation, not a finding of fact.

The HR Function: Higgins and the $180 Fight

The Wilson complaint does not name the HR employee who allegedly said IST could not act “because he’s the owner.” The record does not establish that it was Heather Higgins. But by late 2012, Higgins was IST’s HR manager, and her handling of a separate subcontractor dispute is documented in emails and Work Market notices reviewed in a third-party analysis prepared for a local Mobile area company.

That dispute is small in dollars and large in signal. On Sept. 11, 2013, the company accepted an IST Work Market assignment titled “DMB Helper – NEEDED TONIGHT!!” in Mobile, Alabama, for a flat fee of $150. IST paid the $150 on Sept. 25. The company’s owner says the job took seven hours, not the two to three hours he expected, and asked for $180 more.

Higgins declined the bonus request on Sept. 13. Her note said it was a flat-rate job and no additional pay was being approved. IST rated the technician five stars the same minute. On Oct. 1, Higgins asked how much more he requested, then whether $180 was the total or additional. The technician answered “$180,” then “$180 additional.” No IST reply follows in the record.

On Oct. 8, the technician wrote that he had received no response and was willing to refer the account to a collection agency. On Oct. 9, IST legal counsel Michael S. Hammer sent a letter refusing payment, restating the flat-rate position, inviting proof, and warning of legal remedies for defamation, slander, or tortious interference. Hammer emailed the letter on Oct. 15 after the certified copy sat unclaimed; the technician then asked Work Market to arrange a three-way call.

On Oct. 16, the technician sent a written reply to Hammer, copying Higgins. A call was set for Oct. 18 at 11 a.m. CST. The technician dialed in and reported nobody else had joined. Higgins wrote that the meeting organizer had double-booked IST and offered to call him directly and conference the others in. The technician replied, “Yes call me now” and gave his cell number. What happened next is not recorded.

The third-party review’s conclusion is not a smoking gun. It found that IST held the stronger documentary position on price terms—the Work Market notices show a flat $150 fee—while the local company’s account of the job’s scope was neither proven nor disproven. The review called the escalation “out of proportion to the sum involved.” It also noted that IST’s first substantive response to the technician’s emails was a lawyer’s letter, not an operational explanation.

That is the critical point. If IST’s version was simply “the posting was flat-rate, and we never promised hours,” it could have said so in a paragraph. Instead, a $180 request drew counsel, a certified letter, and a warning about defamation and interference with business relations.

What the Record Shows—and What It Does Not

The documents do show a management culture worth scrutinizing. In the Wilson complaint, the alleged HR response was that nothing could be done “because he’s the owner.” In the 2013 Work Market record, IST’s HR manager declined extra pay two days after the job, rated the work five stars, asked clarifying questions about the amount, and then went silent while the dispute escalated to outside counsel. When the scheduled call fell through, IST’s recovery was an offer of a direct call—not a written explanation of the scope dispute.

Horwitz, as owner, president, and CEO, was the company’s ultimate authority. The Wilson complaint alleges that his conduct was the hostile environment and that IST condoned and ratified it. The the local company record does not involve harassment; it involves a flat fee and a lawyer’s letter. But the same structural issue appears in both: accountability ran through the owner, and when the owner was the subject, the institution’s response was limited, legalistic, or absent.

IST was acquired in 2018. Horwitz was quoted as IST’s owner and founder, and a Kansas City Business Journal report indicated he would continue with the combined company as executive vice president of service operations. The public record reviewed does not show how the Wilson case ended. It does not show whether the October 18, 2013, call happened. It does not prove that the local company was cheated or that Wilson’s allegations are true.

What it does show is a company that, by its own paper trail, struggled to separate the man at the top from the business he controlled. For a jury, a customer, or a future employee, that is the question worth asking.

 

Read the full lawsuit and allegations here: