A whistleblower is a person who exposes any kind of information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within an organization that is either private or public. Recognizing the public value of whistleblowing has been increasing over the last 50 years. In the United States, both state and Federal statutes have been put in place to protect whistleblowers from retaliation.
The False Claims Act is the federal Government’s primary litigation tool in combating fraud against the Government. The law includes a qui tam provision that allows people who are not affiliated with the government to file actions on behalf of the government, informally called “whistleblowing” especially when employed by the organization accused in the suit.
Whistleblowers who bring qui tam suits are required to file their cases under seal. The DOJ likes it that way, because it may pursue its investigation in a manner that does not tip off the target of the investigation.
California has a similar False Claims Act with qui tam provisions. Also under the California law, the whistleblower’s lawsuit is filed under seal to permit the California Attorney General or local prosecuting authority to investigate and, if warranted, intervene in the action.
But, Jeffrey Werkin, a former high-stakes corporate-fraud prosecutor with the Department of Justice, had secretly stockpiled sealed lawsuits brought by whistleblowers. His plan was to sell copies of the suits to the very targets of the pending government investigations – and his services to defend them.
Wertkin carried out his plan for months, right up until the day an FBI agent arrested him in a California hotel lobby last year. On that day, Wertkin believed he was meeting at a Cupertino hotel with a representative from a company with whom he would exchange the sealed whistleblower complaint for a duffel bag filled with $310,000. In truth, Wertkin was meeting with an undercover employee of the FBI.
The 41-year-old partner at the prominent DC firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld was caught wearing a wig and fake mustache trying to peddle a sealed federal lawsuit for $310,000 to a Silicon Valley technology company. “My life is over,” he told the undercover agent after his arrest at an intended cash drop at the Cupertino hotel.
Wertkin recently pleaded guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of transportation of stolen property.
Wertkin admitted that during the last month of his employment as a trial attorney with the Department of Justice, he began secretly reviewing and collecting sealed qui tam complaints that were not assigned to him. Further, Wertkin has admitted that after he left the Department of Justice, he used the stolen information to improperly solicit clients that were the subject of the sealed complaints.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on March 14, 2018 at 2:15 pm by federal judge Maxine M. Chesney.