The United States government, and states across the country, spend billions of dollars each year on Medicare, Medicaid, Pharmaceuticals, Defense Contracts, Disaster Relief, Construction Projects, Energy, and Education. These government programs continue to be victimized by massive fraud that have cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Although the government has tried to combat fraud, it often does not have the resources and the evidence to bring the culprits to justice and to recover the taxpayers' money.
Faced with this reality, the federal and state governments have relied heavily on average citizens to step up and blow the whistle against businesses and individuals that have defrauded the government. These citizen-whistleblowers have the right, under federal and state laws known as "False Claims Acts," to report false or fraudulent claims for money from the government. If the government recovers money from the people who committed the fraud, the whistleblower may have a right to receive a substantial percentage of that recovery. Many of the False Claims Acts also contain provisions that generally prohibit an employer from retaliating against a whistleblower for reporting the fraud.
False Claims Acts have proven to be the most effective tool for combating fraud against the government. Since 1986, the federal and state governments have recovered approximately $27 Billion using the False Claims Acts. More than 50% of these astonishing recoveries have come from information provided by whistleblowers. Whistleblowers, in turn, have been paid more than $2 Billion as reward for reporting the fraud on the government.
The Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") also has recently started its own whistleblower reward program to encourage people to blow the whistle on improper reporting of federal income taxes.
If you believe that you have information about fraud against the federal or state governments, and would like to speak to an attorney about becoming a whistleblower, we would be happy to refer you to an attorney who specializes in representing whistleblowers.
