Speaker 1: Jeffrey Werkin's arrest in early February was a stunner. The
Speaker 1: former Justice Department attorney was accused of trying to sell
Speaker 1: a confidential lawsuit filed by a whistleblower to the company
Speaker 1: being targeted. He was arrested in a Silicon Valley hotel
Speaker 1: lobby where he was using a false name, wearing a wig,
Speaker 1: and carrying a seal, allegedly carrying a sealed complaint that
Speaker 1: he was planning to sell for three ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: A new Bloomberg News story says FBI agents are now
Speaker 1: asking questions at the Justice Department, trying to determine how
Speaker 1: Wortkin got the complaint and whether he sold other secrets
Speaker 1: while working at the Department's Medicare fraud unit. Wortkin has
Speaker 1: yet to enter a plea, and his lawyer has declined
Speaker 1: to comment with us to talk about the case. David Stone,
Speaker 1: senior managing partner of the law firm Stone and Man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna mess this up. David Man man Ganini and
Speaker 1: Nola J. Hitchcock Cock Cross, managing attorney at the Cross
Speaker 1: Law Firm. I'm having less trouble pronouncing that. Welcome to you, both,
Speaker 1: David H. Let's start with you tell us why this
Speaker 1: complaint that work Can is accused of trying to sell
Speaker 1: was under seal in the first place. Well, Um, the
Speaker 1: False Claims Act, which is a federal statute, provides that
Speaker 1: private individuals who blow the whistle on fraud against the
Speaker 1: government can bring cases on behalf of the government. But
Speaker 1: those cases must be filed under seal in order to
Speaker 1: give the government the opportunity to investigate the case and
Speaker 1: determine whether they want to proceed with the case or not.
Speaker 1: And the statute requires that the case be kept under
Speaker 1: seal for at least sixty days, although it can be
Speaker 1: extended for good cause, and often is extended for good cause. So, Nola,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of secrecy surrounding the Justice Department lawyers
Speaker 1: investigating the whistle blower claims. Where could he have gotten
Speaker 1: the information besides from another colleague. Well, let me first
Speaker 1: say there's a couple of other reasons for the you
Speaker 1: and why it's very important and particularly also why it's
Speaker 1: important to relators, um, because when the relators file the complaint, UM,
Speaker 1: oftentimes are the people who are the whistleblowers right, sometimes
Speaker 1: called whistleblowers. Under the statutes, they're called relators. Yes, those
Speaker 1: are the whistleblowers. And and very frequently the whistleblowers are
Speaker 1: current employees. So a very important reason for this seal
Speaker 1: process under the statue, which is highly unusual in any
Speaker 1: federal law, is is to protect the identity of the
Speaker 1: whistleblowers themselves, of their laders exactly. And and and another reason
Speaker 1: which is extremely important to the government is UM that
Speaker 1: because of the first to file rule UM, when a
Speaker 1: whistleblower is filing such a complaint, they have no knowledge
Speaker 1: whether twenty other people have already filed, and in fact
Speaker 1: they will not be entitled to any UM share in
Speaker 1: any recovery. And yet they, because of the seal process,
Speaker 1: they provide all of their information as a government, giving
Speaker 1: the government an opportunity to get multiple UM whistleblowers to
Speaker 1: provide information. UM. He had to the access to the
Speaker 1: complaints UM. The UM he was not a Department of
Speaker 1: Justice employee at the time of the alleged act UM
Speaker 1: he was until I believe April of two thousand sixteen, UM.
Speaker 1: And there have been some reports that UM, you know,
Speaker 1: speculations that he may have taken UM other UM complaints
Speaker 1: that he was working on. UM. One question for the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice there would be whether there's a fire
Speaker 1: firewall and UM, what access there would be generally to
Speaker 1: to all of them that are filed. David, how did
Speaker 1: let's talk about the Jeffrey Working case in particular, how
Speaker 1: how did he come to the attention of UH, the
Speaker 1: FBI and the first place. So what happened in this
Speaker 1: case is that jeff we war Getten, who was formerly
Speaker 1: a member of the Department of Justice and worked on
Speaker 1: these cases and therefore had access to these cases, but
Speaker 1: had left the Department and was now a partner in
Speaker 1: a in a well known law firm, UM private law firm,
Speaker 1: contacted an individual at one of the defendants UH that
Speaker 1: was a defendant under this False Claims Act case that
Speaker 1: was under seal, and offered to give them information about
Speaker 1: the case, give them a copy of the sealed complaint
Speaker 1: which they wouldn't otherwise have access to. And that individual
Speaker 1: apparently contacted the FBI, and the FBI carried out a
Speaker 1: sting operation. So, Nola, they're going to have to be
Speaker 1: reviewing his cases, and how will that affect his cases
Speaker 1: and the other cases in the office well, like I
Speaker 1: I indicated, there may need to be a review beyond
Speaker 1: what cases were signed to him, depending upon what firewall
Speaker 1: may have been in place and what access UM in
Speaker 1: the investigative UM attorney in the Department of Justice would
Speaker 1: have had. UM. You know, he may have had access
Speaker 1: to a larger kind of play. But I do want
Speaker 1: to emphasize, though, and going over this, that this is
Speaker 1: such an aberration and so shocking to everyone because of
Speaker 1: the exceedingly high level of professionalism that we experience as
Speaker 1: related council with SIBIL or counsel um with the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice. David, do you do you agree with that?
Speaker 1: Have you seen anything like this before. I've never seen
Speaker 1: anything like this before, and there was you know, well,
Speaker 1: I have disagreements about certain things. I mean, Jeffrey Workin
Speaker 1: was the key d o J lawyer on a number
Speaker 1: of cases I was involved in where the government did
Speaker 1: not intervene, and I didn't agree with those hittance. I
Speaker 1: never agree with those decisions, Um, But you know, I
Speaker 1: did hear from other people that you know, he was
Speaker 1: a very aggressive advocate for other cases. So it certainly
Speaker 1: came as a complete surprise that this happened. And I
Speaker 1: would say this is an aberration. But what I would
Speaker 1: say about this case is that he left with at
Speaker 1: least one, apparently one seal complaint, which clearly is not legal,
Speaker 1: and the fact that he had at least one sealed
Speaker 1: complaints suggests that maybe he had more than one. He
Speaker 1: is assigned as the key point person on a number
Speaker 1: of these false claims cases a year, and he also
Speaker 1: potentially has access to other False Claims Act complaints that
Speaker 1: are under sealed because because as Nolan mentioned, he has
Speaker 1: to determine whether there's a first to file issue that
Speaker 1: he has to tell lawyers about. So he had access
Speaker 1: not only to his own complaints, but presumably to other ones,
Speaker 1: and certainly in terms of decisions where the government did
Speaker 1: not intervene in cases that he was involved in. If
Speaker 1: there's any inkling that he was doing this while he
Speaker 1: was at d o J, I think it's really important
Speaker 1: that those cases be you know, we examined to determine
Speaker 1: that those intervention decisions were made properly and that those
Speaker 1: were leaders were treated properly. I want to thank our guest,
Speaker 1: David Stone of Stone and Manganini and Nola J. Hitchcock
Speaker 1: Hitchcock Cross of the Cross Law Firm, talking about the
Speaker 1: case of Jeffrey workin