Story Archive

Whistle Blown

For six years, Jeffrey Wertkin, 41, was an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice. His job was to prosecute “high-stakes corporate fraud” — which gave him access to information about “whistleblowers” who wanted to report malfeasance by their employers. Wertkin, who recently left the government to work at a high-end Washington D.C. law firm, “stockpiled” the sealed information from such cases, including many he was not assigned to, and now admits he offered to sell the information to the companies involved, which would blow the cover of those making the reports, and make government lawsuits more difficult to pursue. Wertkin was wearing a wig and a fake moustache when he tried to sell one such case file to an unnamed Silicon Valley tech company for $310,000 — but the supposed company official on the other side of the table was actually an undercover FBI agent, who arrested him. Wertkin’s comment upon his arrest: “My life is over.” (RC/Washington Post) ...Nah, he still has several lives left: there’s “defendant,” then “inmate,” and, after some years, “parolee.”