Legal team takes down a $550-million Social Security disability scheme
A Kentucky lawyer ran the largest federal disability scheme in history — until he got caught.
Two prosecutors, Dustin Davis and Elizabeth Wright, have taken down the largest federal disability scheme in U.S. history. Run by Eric Conn, a Kentucky disability lawyer, the $550 million scam involved patients didn’t have to undergo exams, but were approved for disability payments. Their case files were then forged to make them appear disabled. According to an FBI agent who testified at his trial, the government paid Conn $10 million in fees over a 10-year period.
Davis and Wright took on the case just a year before the statute of limitations would have expired, allowing Conn to get away with all of his ill-gotten gains. The prosecutors and their team poured through 5,000 disability cases in order to build their indictment.
They discovered the bogus disability claims, bribes paid to a doctor, as well as the $600,000 paid to an administrative law judge, who basically rubber-stamped the fraudulent claims through the Social Security system.
Conn pleaded guilty and was initially sentenced to 12 years in jail, but opted to cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet and escape to Honduras. After six months on the run, police recaptured him and extradited him to the U.S., where he plead guilty to three more charges that carried a sentence of five years each, bringing his total sentence to 27 years.
The Social Security Administration paid in excess of $72 million before the fraud was discovered, however it was scheduled to pay more the $600 million to the beneficiaries of the bogus claimants.
Because of their efforts, Davis and Wright were presented with the Prosecutor of the Year Award from the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud.