Intellectual theft by a former colleague, how to respond?
While I sympathize with your situation, I believe that you are vastly overestimating the severity of the wrong-doing by the coordinator and your former supervisor, labeling the question with tags such as plagiarism, and calling it intellectual theft in the title. It is hardly either.
As I understand the situation, neither you nor your former supervisor has any ownership over the data. They belong to another group, and when prompted, they said that they would rather do the study themselves. From your description it seems like the study was a rather obvious one, so there is really little intellectual ownership as far as the method goes. The coordinator was even nice, and offered you another data set.
These things happen all the time, and you have not sunk too many resources into the project yet. Cut your minimal losses, write back with a &quot;thanks for the alternative data set&quot;, and if you feel like it, you can even add that the coordinator may pass your contact information, in case the group is looking for a collaborator with your expertise.