A Washington lawyer at a prominent firm was arrested in a disguise while trying to sell a copy of a secret lawsuit involving a company that was under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department.

Jeffrey Wertkin was taken into custody in the lobby of the Hilton Garden Inn in Cupertino, California, where he believed he was about to collect $310,000 for selling a copy of the sealed whistle-blower lawsuit to the targeted company.

“My life is over,” Wertkin told the FBI agent. He was charged with Contempt of Court and Obstruction of Justice in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 401(3).

Attorney Wertkin had previously won a coveted job at the Justice Department in 2010. Working on cases related to health-care, he remained there until April 2016, when he left for a job at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in Washington. His government pay was about $150,000 per year. At a firm like Akin Gump, where Wertkin defended companies sued under the whistle-blower law, attorneys with his credentials earn as much as $600,000.

Wertkin believed he would hand a copy of a sealed federal Qui Tam complaint to an employee of the company, which was accused in the complaint by a whistle-blower of falsely billing the government. The Qui Tam civil matter was previously filed under seal in January, 2016, pursuant to 31 U.S.C. § 3730(b)(2) and pending before the Honorable Jacqueline Scott Corley in the San Francisco division of the United States District Court in the Northern District of California. Wertkin, who was wearing a wig and using the name of Dan, was met instead by an FBI agent, according to arrest documents unsealed on Feb. 6.

Prosecutors say Jeffrey Wertkin attempted to sell a whistle-blower’s confidential lawsuit against a Silicon Valley company. FBI agents want to know whether Wertkin, who left the government in April, got the lawsuit from someone inside the Justice Department and if he sold other secrets while working there, according to two people familiar with the matter who weren’t authorized to discuss it publicly.

Wertkin, who appeared in San Francisco federal court Feb. 1, was released on $750,000 bail, which was secured by real estate in Washington, D.C., located on 12th Street, Northwest, according to court filings.

The case began with an employee at an unidentified technology security company in Sunnyvale, California, getting a voice mail on Nov. 30. The caller left a phone number and said a sealed False Claims Act lawsuit had been filed against the company, according to the FBI.

When the employee dialed the number, the caller identified himself as Dan and said he could provide a copy of the complaint for a “consulting fee,” the FBI said. He mailed a redacted copy of the cover page to the employee, who notified the FBI. The agency verified that the case has been pending since January 2016.

The employee agreed to secretly record calls to Dan for the FBI. On Dec. 22, Dan said he would provide the full complaint for $300,000, the FBI said. Two weeks later, Dan suggested he get paid in untraceable bitcoins, and said buying the complaint would help the company “get out ahead of the investigation.” The employee unsuccessfully sought to negotiate a cheaper price for the sealed lawsuit, according to the court filings.

On Jan. 19, Dan outlined to the employee his plan to meet on Jan. 31 near Sunnyvale, boosting his price to $310,000 to cover his travel expenses, according to the filings. Five days later, the employee said a colleague named Bill would meet him with the money in a hotel lobby. Dan wanted Bill’s cell phone number to text the location. That proved his undoing.

Bill turned out to be FBI agent William Scanlon. As he had agreed, Scanlon wore a gray Titleist hat and carried a blue duffel bag into the lobby of the Hilton Garden Inn. Dan texted him to find the empty chair in the lobby graced with a newspaper, according to the filings.

The case is U.S. v. Wertkin, 17-70131, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).