SAN FRANCISCO — Former Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Wertkin pleaded guilty Wednesday afternoon in a case where he's accused of attempting to sell sealed whistleblower lawsuits to targeted companies.

Wertkin, who was a partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld at the time of his arrest in January, pleaded guilty before U.S. Senior District Judge Maxine Chesney of the Northern District of California to two charges of obstruction of justice and one count of transporting stolen goods across state lines.

“It's clear this was not a series of pleas entered lightly or without adequate information,” Chesney said at the end of Wednesday afternoon's hearing.

Federal prosecutors have agreed to ask for between 30 and 37 months prison time as part of Wertkin's plea deal, but his defense lawyers at Arguedas, Cassman & Headley intend to ask for less time at sentencing scheduled for March 14, 2018.

Wertkin was apprehended by federal agents in a Cupertino, California, hotel lobby while wearing a wig in what he thought was a meeting to hand off sealed documents in late January.
He joined the firm in April 2016 after a nearly six-year stint as a trial lawyer in the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division.

A spokesman for Akin Gump declined to comment Wednesday.

Wertkin was charged with obstruction of justice in a criminal complaint unsealed in February. Prosecutors claimed Wertkin engaged in a months-long scheme to collect a $310,000 “consulting fee” for handing over a sealed False Claims Act lawsuit against an unnamed Sunnyvale, California, company. Posing as someone named “Dan,” Wertkin allegedly reached out to a high-ranking employee at the company by phone in November 2016, alerted the employee that a sealed lawsuit was filed against the company, and offered to provide a copy of the complaint. The company alerted the FBI shortly after Wertkin reached out.

A superseding criminal information filed earlier this month described Wertkin's efforts to sell a second confidential lawsuit to an Oregon-based company.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robin Harris, who is prosecuting Wertkin's case, said Wertkin agreed to meet with federal prosecutors in Oregon and lawyers at the DOJ's Civil Division to “mitigate the damage he caused.”

Wertkin's lawyer, Cristina Arguedas of Arguedas Cassman, said Wertkin “had an honorable career for a long time and then he made a series of terrible misjudgments.”

“Now he's doing everything he can to make it right.”