Social Security Disability is one of the nation’s most important safety nets, offering financial assistance and medical care to workers who are prevented from continuing their careers by injury or illness. When someone defrauds the Social Security Disability benefits system, it hurts all of us, but most especially taxpayers and those with disabilities.
A man who defrauded the system of more than a half-billion dollars and then fled the U.S. has been captured in Honduras. He is to be returned to this country to begin serving a 12-year prison sentence.
Eric Conn of Kentucky faces mounting legal woes. Earlier this year a $31 million judgment was entered against him in a False Claims Act lawsuit filed by two whistleblowers who worked in the Social Security Administration. They had repeatedly reported Conn’s improprieties to their supervisors and filed a suit against him in 2011.
As you know, whistleblowers are entitled to shares of judgments in such matters, though it has not yet been disclosed what percentage the whistleblowers will receive in the Conn case.
Conn was well-known in Kentucky for promising clients that he could get them SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) benefits. The attorney pleaded guilty to conspiring with administrative law judges and others to submit bogus SSDI claims and get them approved.
“The negative impact of Conn’s presence in our community will be felt for generations,” an FBI spokesperson said earlier this year. “His flight from prosecution has diminished any legitimacy and integrity he once held.”
Conn was under house arrest in Kentucky when he cut off his ankle monitor a month before he was to be sentenced. He fled to New Mexico, across the border and eventually to Honduras during his six months on the lam.
The whistleblowers in the civil case said they were motivated by their consciences to file their False Claims lawsuit against him.
An attorney experienced in False Claims Act litigation can help you to similarly stop fraud while protecting your interests.