(LEGAFI) -- A pharmaceutical sales rep for Abbott Laboratories (NASDAQ: ABT) has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the drug maker, claiming Abbott instructed reps to ignore FDA regulations and promote "off-label" selling of the epilepsy drug Depakote.  

Thomas Spetter Jr. alleges in the Abbott whistleblower lawsuit that during his training to become a sales rep in the late 1990s, he and other trainees received conflicting messages from the drug maker. 

The first message, delivered by corporate trainers, complied with federal law: Market drugs only for purposes that have been approved by the Food and Drug administration.

The second message, however, didn’t mesh so squarely with FDA regulations.

According to Spetter, trainees were taken to a separate room after the first message was delivered and were told by an experienced Abbott sales rep to ignore corporate trainers’ directions and instead market Depakote as a way to treat agitation associated with dementia, a practice that would be illegal.

The U.S. Department of Justice has decided to intervene in Spetter’s whistleblower lawsuit, which was filed in 2010. The DOJ has also intervened in lawsuits filed by three other groups of whistleblowers to determine whether Abbott’s marketing of Depakote violated civil and criminal laws, including fraudulently charging Medicare and Medicaid. 

Whistleblowers allege in the Abbott Depakote lawsuits that the company encouraged and trained sales reps to market Depakote off-label to nursing home directors, geriatric doctors and other long-term care facilities. Abbott is also accused of giving doctors illegal kickbacks to talk about off-label uses of the drug in order to boost sales. 

Abbott announced last month it had set aside $1.5 billion relating to the FDA Depakote probe, signaling it is in settlement discussions to resolve the whistleblower claims. 

While doctors are allowed to prescribe drugs for “off-label” purposes, companies cannot market them that way. The FDA has received dozens of whistleblower cases relating to illegal off-label marketing. The cases are often filed under the False Claims Act, which allows private citizens to sue on the government’s behalf for suspected fraud against the federal government.