A case of corruption by a former DOJ lawyer

MSM/Washington Post:

A former corporate-fraud prosecutor carried out the “most serious” example of public corruption by a U.S. Department of Justice attorney in years by stealing more than 40 whistleblower fraud cases in 2016 and trying to sell the secret information to companies under federal investigation, prosecutors said.

The scheme was an attempt to woo potential clients and increase his earnings and standing in his new role as a defense lawyer for one of Washington’s most influential law firms, according to prosecutors and admissions by Jeffrey Wertkin at his sentencing Wednesday.

After his arrest for one shakedown attempt, Wertkin embarked on an “obstruction binge” at his private law office to destroy additional evidence of his year-long plot and also tried to frame a former colleague at the Justice Department for the records theft, court files show.

Wertkin’s sentencing hearing revealed a more extensive and calculating crime than previously was made public, showing he stole and copied dozens of files — taking some at night from his boss’s desk at main Justice, copying them and returning them re-stapled — and then reached out to targeted companies in four states to try to drum up business for himself.

An attorney for a California company tipped off the FBI in January 2017 to an approach by Wertkin who had offered to sell a sealed federal lawsuit for $310,000 to the Silicon Valley technology company. “My life is over,” Wertkin told an undercover FBI agent after he was arrested wearing a wig and fake mustache at an intended cash drop at a Cupertino, Calif., hotel.

In a court filing seeking leniency, Wertkin said he committed his crimes while on “a terrible path” of abusing alcohol and marijuana during what his defense called “a period of heightened anxiety and depression, a sense of impending failure at work and a deteriorating marriage.”
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I once acted as an arbitrator in a case where a company alleged that a group of former employees took records to set up a competing company.  As a part of the discovery in the case, I ordered the respondents to produce copies of any material taken from their former employer.  I was stunned at the hearing to see the room filled with file boxes of material.  During the course of the hearing, the respondents claimed that they believed they had an ownership in the records because they had worked on the business the records pertained to.  I eventually asked the leader of the group if they thought they owned the records, why did they take in the middle of the night?  He did not have a good answer and I asked him if it was because they thought the managers at the business he was taking them from would have disputed their claim of ownership.

The DOJ case is a form of betrayal that stuns the senses.  In all my years of practicing law, I don't recall seeing or hearing of anything like it.  I would have a hard time granting any leniency in this case.