Antonio Saidiani filed a whistleblower suit alleging that NextCare urgent centers and CEO Dr. Shufeldt had collected tens of millions of dollars in false Medicare claims. Antonio was in a position to know because he was that most dangerous of all whistleblowers: the fired ex-employee.

NextCare entered into a settlement agreement, but Dr. Shufeldt didn’t. The government declined to intervene in Antonio’s claims against Dr. Shufeldt. So Antonio pursued them on his own.

That’s when Dr. Shufeldt blew his own whistle—a loud one. He pointed out that on the very next day after filing his amended whistleblower complaint, Antonio had filed for bankruptcy and answered “none” to the question about “other assets.”  If Antonio’s claim was worth millions, as he said in his whistleblower suit, then wasn’t his answer a fraud?

The court agreed. It wasn’t impressed by Antonio’s excuse that he couldn’t answer honestly because the whistleblower complaint was still under seal at the time. Last Thursday the court dismissed his case with prejudice for lack of standing.  Any claim that Antonio may have had now belongs to the bankruptcy estate.

The lesson? Get your stories straight. If you go to the courthouse one day and tell a judge you have a whistleblower case worth millions, don’t go back to the courthouse the next day and tell a bankruptcy judge you don’t have any assets.  The first judge might hear about it.

The case is U.S. ex rel. Saidiana v. NextCare, No. 3:11CV141, 2014 BL 259597 (W.D.N.C.).