HAZARD, Ky. — Years after an Eastern Kentucky lawyer orchestrated a $600 million fraud, his clients remain entangled in a legal mess.
Eric Conn is in prison for running the largest Social Security scam in U.S. history. He bribed doctors and a judge to get disability payments approved.
The Social Security Administration canceled those benefits without fully considering the medical evidence, and about 230 of his former clients finally got the payments restored in November.
Now the agency is again demanding proof that they qualified for the cash years ago.
Congressman Hal Rogers says these people are victims of a con job and it's time for their anxiety to end.
Background
In 2018, Eric Conn who was being monitored by a GPS ankle bracelet spent six months on the run after pleading guilty to those charges but was captured in Honduras in December 2017. The FBI said Conn cut off the bracelet and took off. The feds even offered a $20K reward for information on his whereabouts.
Federal investigators said Conn was trying to avoid prosecution. Once he was extradited back to Kentucky, a judge added an additional 15 years to his 12-year sentence.
Curtis Wyatt was eventually charged for helping Conn leave the country. Investigators said Wyatt opened a bank account that Conn used to transfer money. In July 2018, Wyatt was sentenced to four months.
He has been permanently disbarred from practicing law in the state by the Kentucky Supreme Court.
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Fugitive attorney's victim's awaiting justice