Eric Conn pleads guilty to Social Security disability fraud

A ringleader in one of the biggest Social Security disability fraud cases in U.S. history has pleaded guilty to filing more than 1,700 bogus applications, bilking the government out of potentially a half-billion dollars.

But the administration is struggling to figure out how to handle the applicants, many of whom say that even though their applications were falsified, their cases are real and they shouldn’t be punished for having been ensnared by the massive fraud.

Eric C. Conn, a prominent lawyer in eastern Kentucky, signed a guilty plea late last month acknowledging the scam, in which he recruited and filed at least 1,748 fraudulent applications, complete with fake IQ tests or medical exams. He had a team of doctors and psychologists sign off on them, then had a Social Security judge rubber-stamp them.

All told, his scam left the government on the hook for more than $550 million in lifetime benefits, with more than $46 million doled out as of October, Conn admitted in his plea deal.

Cases are pending against Administrative Law Judge David Black Daugherty, who rubber-stamped the applications, and against Alfred Bradley Adkins, a psychologist who made up mental health evaluations to support hundreds of the bogus applications.

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