For three months, Wells Fargo has reeled from scandal, hitby the revelation the bank’s employees created thousands ofunauthorized accounts for unknowing customers.

Related: Expect the best, prepare for theworst

It now appears the scheme may run deeper, and impact somecustomers who purchased life insurance policies through those sameemployees.

A fresh lawsuit alleges that bank employees signed up customersup for low-cost life insurance through Prudential Financial Inc.,which they may not have askedfor. The wrongful-termination suit was filedby three former managers in Prudential’scorporate-investigation who say they were fired for trying to bringattention internally to Wells Fargo’s conduct.Prudential claims the employees were terminated fornonretaliatory reasons.

This latest legal action also has spurred an investigation by insurance regulators inCalifornia and New Jersey. California Department ofInsurance Commissioner Dave Jones has asked investigators to diginto all aspects of these allegations, including possibleviolations of California laws requiring personstransacting insurance to have an insurance license issued by thedepartment.

“Investigators with the California Department of Insurance willinvestigate new allegations of fraud and misconduct made by formerPrudential employees regarding Wells Fargo and its employees,” saidCommissioner Jones. “Former Prudential employees who filed awhistleblower lawsuit allege that Wells Fargo signed up consumersfor Prudential insurance policies without consumer permission muchas Wells Fargo admitted its employees illegally signed up consumersfor bank products without permission. We will also examinePrudential Insurance company’s practices in this regard.”

Related: Despite recent events, integrity stillmatters

Prudential challenges whistleblowers

More than two decades ago, New Jersey lawyer Nancy Erika Smithrepresented a Prudential executive named Mark Jorgensen, who blewthe whistle on the overvaluation of properties in real estate fundsthat were sold to institutional investors. Smith and her husband,Neil Mullin, run the whistleblower firm Smith Mullin.

After six months of fighting the accusations, in 1994, and afterdiscrediting and firing Jorgensen, Prudential admitted thewhistleblower was right all along. Prudential’s chairman andCEO would praise Jorgensen’s "courage and conviction" and offer toreinstate him. Jorgensen declined the offer and settled hisretaliation case against Prudential for an undisclosed sum.

On Tuesday, Smith and Mullin, a husband-and-wife legal team,spoke out about their latest whistleblower matter regardingPrudential: The firm now is representing, with co-counsel, WellsFargo customers who claim they were enrolled without consent inPrudential’s “MyTerm” insurance program.

What follows are excerpts from that interview.

More than 20 years ago, you represented awhistleblower who alleged retaliation after flagging misconduct atPrudential. How did you react when you learned about thewhistleblowers who brought issues with Wells Fargo’s salespractices to Prudential’s attention?

Smith (seen here atright): The first thing I said when I heard about thewhistleblowers’ case and their being fired is Prudential has noinstitutional memory. It’s like Jorgensen’s case in that Jorgensenwas blowing the whistle on serious fraud on the pubic. And like thewhistleblowers today, he naively thought ‘Oh my god I better tellpeople.’ He thought one or two people made a mistake. Like thecurrent whistleblowers, he was met with incredible hostility. Hedidn’t get fired right away. He filed a lawsuit, and he was atwork, and literally nobody would sit with him in the cafeteria.

Thinking back on your experience with Jorgensen,what did you do to get him through that road to vindication? Andwhat tips do you have for whistleblowers in a similarsituation?

Smith: We’re a small law firm, and Neiland I are husband and wife. We became very, very close with theJorgensens. We had dinner at their house. A lot of my clients don’thave my cellphone to call me 24/7. Mark Jorgensen did. People whoare in extremely difficult settings become more than just ourclients. I hear from Mark Jorgensen all the time. I see hisChristmas pictures. I see his children and grandchildren. I knowwhat they’re doing. We become almost like family. … You need to bemore than just their lawyers to understand what they’re goingthrough.

In some of my cases, I have had a current whistleblower talk toa former whistleblower who got through it. It’s almost like alittle individual support group, where you sort of get a pep talk.Because you lose so much when you’re thrown out of your workplacein this kind of setting where memos go around, saying you can’ttalk to so and so. … You have to establish a support network.

What were the hardest parts about the Jorgensencase?

Smith: There were two days that were very,very, very difficult. One was the day that my client called me andsaid he was sitting alone in the cafeteria. And people who’d beenhis friends for many many years wouldn’t look at him or talk tohim. He just couldn’t believe it. I talked to him on the phonewhile he ate his lunch alone.

I think the other really rough day was the day they fired him.That was a very interesting day. I was in court on another matter,and the judge in the Prudential case insisted that I come rightaway to his courtroom. And the Prudential lawyers were there, andthey were waving around a Bloomberg story saying we’d talked to thepress. The judge started questioning me.

I said, ‘Wait a minute, what is this? Is this an order to showcause, is this a motion for temporary restraint? Is there a gagorder in this case? Is there a motion for a gag order? Is this mydeposition? What is this process?’ The judge was basically sayingthat I was ‘obtuse’ if I didn’t understand. And I just held my ownand said I’m not answering questions.

The judge said from the bench that, in his opinion, Prudentialhad a right to fire Mr. Jorgensen for talking to the press, andthat’s what they did that day. And we worked overnight, around theclock to file another case claiming that now our client wasretaliated against for asserting his right under the FirstAmendment.

One aspect of the whistleblower process that can beespecially daunting is the wait — often with strain on family andfinances. Your case with Jorgensen was settled in less than a year.How were you able to resolve the case in a relatively short timeframe?

Smith: With Jorgensen, we were very luckybecause press took an interest in the case. Iremember Bloomberg was just starting, and theytook a big interest in the case. Kurt Eichenwald at TheNew York Times was on it. And we had a U.S. attorneybreathing down their throats. That is why the case settled. I don’tthink we were even in the case a year. That’s a very shortresolution window.

Smith: For many years, actually untilrecently, we got the impression that the Jorgensen case hadaffected Prudential’s decision-making with regard to how to treatwhistleblowers and victims of discrimination. It seemed like amessage had gotten across that maybe attacking the whistleblower ina very public way, or really no-holes-barred litigation for acompany that spends a fortune on PR, didn’t make sense.

Mullin: There were times when we felt wewere working hand in hand with Prudential’s legal department tosolve a problem and prevent wrongdoing. Now it appears that they’velost that institutional memory and they’ve just behaved in an awfulway with these three whistleblowers, firing them all simultaneouslyon the eve of Thanksgiving based on some shabby pretext. So wedon’t get that, we don’t get what happened.

What challenges do you see on the horizon forwhistleblowers?

Smith: As long as we have a culture thatdoesn’t put corporate wrongdoers in jail … you go to jail if you’rean African-American in a city with a joint. But corporatewrongdoers in America don’t go to jail. As long as we live in thatworld, this is going to go on. Our environment is in danger, ourfinances are in danger, every consumer is in danger of beingdefrauded. Wells Fargo, it’s unbelievable how long it went on, thatit continued after it came to light. It still continued through2016 until yesterday. They shut it down yesterday. They didn’tstop. That’s because there’s very little accountability forcorporate wrongdoing.

Smith: Unfortunately, it looks like we’regoing to enter a period where corporations and our government areactually one in the same. So, the idea that we’re going to havemore protections for whistleblowers, which means more protectionsfor the public, is not going to come to fruition. We’re going to goin the other direction and have more of a corporateconversation.

Mullin: On the other hand, we have bluestates, New Jersey being one of them, that have wonderfulwhistleblower laws. Not all blue states, but California does, andNew Jersey does. Interestingly, New York has an extremely weakwhistleblower law — very, very weak.

But I think the action in whistleblowers will be under the statelaws going forward for the next four years. And there will be majorsetbacks, not only setbacks in terms of enforcement throughagencies of whistleblower rights. I would expect the Supreme Courtof the United States, once it has the Trump member on it, willstart to enter decisional law that undermines federal whistleblowerrights. I think that’s a danger. … The landscape’s about to changefor whistleblowers.

Steven A. Meyerowitz, Esq., Director, FC&S Legal,also contributed to this report.