Jeffrey Wertkin
Jeffrey Wertkin is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center where he received a J.D and a Ph.D. He served as a trial attorney in the civil division of the United States Department of Justice from 2010 to April 2016. He was a trial attorney and partner at the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld from April 2016 until he was dismissed following his arrest by the FBI on January 31, 2017.
Legal career
Wertkin graduated from Haverford College in 1998 and received a law degree and doctorate from Georgetown University in 2002.
He was an adjunct professor at Georgetown, teaching a class on federal agencies and administrative rule making at the university’s public policy school. He taught a six-week module at the Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy in the spring of 2013 and 2015. Wertkin allegedly told the tech company employee that it would be in his interest to buy the complaint “so the company could get out ahead of the investigation.” Wertkin was fired from the firm when they discovered the accusations. He now faces contempt-of-court and obstruction charges.
Whistleblower case implications
Wertkin’s role at the Justice Department was pivotal in False Claims Act litigation. His input was a critical factor in whether whistleblower actions were taken up or declined by the government, and he also helped lead a trial in a groundbreaking fraud case that the DOJ did not decide to pursue. David Stone, senior managing partner at Stone & Magnanini in New Jersey, was quoted as saying, "The big question here is, is this the first time he’s done this or is this a pattern of something that he started when he was at DOJ? If this is a pattern then these declination decisions in all these cases that he was a senior DOJ supervisor on are in question."
* United States ex rel. DiMattia et al. v. Medco Health Solutions, Inc., No. 13-1285 (D. Del.). On May 20, 2015, the United States Department of Justice announced that pharmacy benefits manager Medco Health Solutions Inc. agreed to pay the government $7.9 million to resolve allegations that Medco’s arrangements with pharmaceutical manufacturer AstraZeneca violated the False Claims Act. Medco’s parent company, Express Scripts Holding Company, executed the settlement agreement on Medco’s behalf. Jeffrey Wertkin was the lead attorney on the case for the Federal Government.
* John Doe v. Medco Health Solutions Inc., et al., case number 1:11-cv-00684, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. Paul Dennis, a former Medco executive, is suing the company on behalf of the United States, California, Florida, and New Jersey claiming that Medco collected undisclosed illegal discounts from drug manufacturers without passing those savings to clients. In this ongoing False Claims Act case, the federal government declined to intervene on behalf of the plaintiff, requiring the plaintiff to continue with the case using private council. Continuing the prosecution after the government declines to intervene requires substantial resources of both attorneys and money, and it has been described by qui tam professionals in the field as a potentially long and miserable process. Wertkin’s input in that decision to opt out of the case was a “substantial” factor in that decision. ChloraPrep is the commercial name under which CareFusion produced the drug chlorhexidine, used to clean the skin before surgery. Chlorhexidine-alcohol has been proven to be a superior cleansing product when compared to the other popular cleansing agent, povidone-iodine, therefore preventing surgical site infections after clean-contaminated surgeries. Wertkin was the lead attorney for the federal government in this case, serving as Assistant Attorney General.
Legal career
Wertkin graduated from Haverford College in 1998 and received a law degree and doctorate from Georgetown University in 2002.
He was an adjunct professor at Georgetown, teaching a class on federal agencies and administrative rule making at the university’s public policy school. He taught a six-week module at the Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy in the spring of 2013 and 2015. Wertkin allegedly told the tech company employee that it would be in his interest to buy the complaint “so the company could get out ahead of the investigation.” Wertkin was fired from the firm when they discovered the accusations. He now faces contempt-of-court and obstruction charges.
Whistleblower case implications
Wertkin’s role at the Justice Department was pivotal in False Claims Act litigation. His input was a critical factor in whether whistleblower actions were taken up or declined by the government, and he also helped lead a trial in a groundbreaking fraud case that the DOJ did not decide to pursue. David Stone, senior managing partner at Stone & Magnanini in New Jersey, was quoted as saying, "The big question here is, is this the first time he’s done this or is this a pattern of something that he started when he was at DOJ? If this is a pattern then these declination decisions in all these cases that he was a senior DOJ supervisor on are in question."
* United States ex rel. DiMattia et al. v. Medco Health Solutions, Inc., No. 13-1285 (D. Del.). On May 20, 2015, the United States Department of Justice announced that pharmacy benefits manager Medco Health Solutions Inc. agreed to pay the government $7.9 million to resolve allegations that Medco’s arrangements with pharmaceutical manufacturer AstraZeneca violated the False Claims Act. Medco’s parent company, Express Scripts Holding Company, executed the settlement agreement on Medco’s behalf. Jeffrey Wertkin was the lead attorney on the case for the Federal Government.
* John Doe v. Medco Health Solutions Inc., et al., case number 1:11-cv-00684, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. Paul Dennis, a former Medco executive, is suing the company on behalf of the United States, California, Florida, and New Jersey claiming that Medco collected undisclosed illegal discounts from drug manufacturers without passing those savings to clients. In this ongoing False Claims Act case, the federal government declined to intervene on behalf of the plaintiff, requiring the plaintiff to continue with the case using private council. Continuing the prosecution after the government declines to intervene requires substantial resources of both attorneys and money, and it has been described by qui tam professionals in the field as a potentially long and miserable process. Wertkin’s input in that decision to opt out of the case was a “substantial” factor in that decision. ChloraPrep is the commercial name under which CareFusion produced the drug chlorhexidine, used to clean the skin before surgery. Chlorhexidine-alcohol has been proven to be a superior cleansing product when compared to the other popular cleansing agent, povidone-iodine, therefore preventing surgical site infections after clean-contaminated surgeries. Wertkin was the lead attorney for the federal government in this case, serving as Assistant Attorney General.
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