U.S. Attorney Responsible for $550 Million Disability Fraud Sentenced to More Prison

Thomson Reuters

(Reuters) – A disbarred Kentucky lawyer who was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Friday for his role in a record $550 million disability fraud scheme was ordered to serve an additional 15 years after fleeing to Honduras to avoid incarceration.

Eric Conn, who led one of the largest disability law firms in the United States, was sentenced to additional prison time by U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves in Lexington, Kentucky, the U.S. Department of Justice announced of Justice.

The conviction came after Conn, who called himself “Mr. Social Security,” pleaded guilty in June to three counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to escape.

He pleaded guilty in March 2017 to charges related to the fraud scheme, but fled in June before his sentencing. Reeves later sentenced him in absentia to 12 years in prison.

Conn, 58, was finally arrested in December at a Pizza Hut restaurant in the coastal city of La Ceiba, Honduras, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Reeves also ordered Conn to pay $72.6 million in restitution. An attorney for Conn, who lived in Pikeville, Kentucky, did not respond to a request for comment.

Prosecutors said that between 2004 and 2016, Conn participated in a scheme that involved submitting falsified medical documents to the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) to obtain disability benefits for thousands of people.

Prosecutors said that from 2004 to 2011, Conn paid about $10,000 a month to a now-retired SSA administrative judge to award benefits to clients for whom Conn had submitted falsified medical documents.

As a result, the administrative judge issued decisions granting benefits in more than 1,700 cases of Conn's clients, prosecutors said.

Conn also paid medical professionals to sign false medical forms before his clients' evaluations took place, prosecutors said.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; editing by Leslie Adler)

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