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04-11-2017, 07:01 AM
Ringleader pleads guilty in huge Social Security fraud scheme; disability beneficiaries in limbo
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 (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/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 (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/eric-c-conn/) admitted in his plea deal.
Cases are pending against Administrative Law Judge David Black Daugherty (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/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.
But the criminal cases have ensnared Conn’s clients, most of whom say they have valid claims of disability even if the fraud ring cheated on their applications.
Social Security officials said they have sent 1,456 of the cases through another Social Security judge and about 55 percent of them have been deemed undeserving. Another 45 percent have been upheld either in full or in part.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/10/eric-conn-pleads-guilty-to-social-security-disabil/