On January 10, Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), announced the creation of a Whistleblower Pilot Program offering non-prosecution agreements to eligible whistleblowers.
“The program encourages early and voluntary self-disclosure of criminal conduct by individual participants in certain non-violent offenses,” the SDNY’s press release explains. “In exchange for self-disclosure and cooperation against others involved in the criminal conduct, SDNY will enter into a non-prosecution agreement where certain specified conditions are met, including, importantly, the condition that the Government was not previously aware of the criminal conduct that is the subject of the disclosure.”
Whistleblower advocates, however, warn that whistleblowers should use extreme caution in regards to the program because of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) poor track record with whistleblowers. They also note that other agencies offer anonymity and rewards to whistleblowers.
“Outside of representing the United States in False Claims Act cases, the DOJ has no whistleblower office or program,” says whistleblower attorney Stephen M. Kohn of Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto. “In violation of federal law, DOJ has no program to accept confidential and anonymous whistleblower tips under the Anti-Money Laundering/Bank Secrecy Act whistleblower law. Worse still, the DOJ has indicted and aggressively prosecuted highly qualified whistleblowers, even...
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