Conn Sentenced to 27 Years!

I’ve previously detailed the long-running saga of Kentucky attorney Eric Conn and his co-conspirators and their fates as a result of them swindling the U. S. government out of some $550 million in fraudulent Social Security Administration (SSA) disability benefits.

Here is my first, outlining the basics of the U.S. government’s case against Mr. Conn and his cohorts.  Here is my second and third blog entries updating the cases, including an earlier guilty plea. And of course, my fourth blog entry covering his fleeing the state, and the last adding a few more details to the story that had surfaced at that time.

Freedom's Expensive Price

Well, the U.S. government, with help from Honduran authorities (Yes, that’s right, he made it all the way to Honduras!), finally caught up with Mr. Conn last December according to the Lexington Herald leader where apparently he was arrested at a La Ceiba, Honduras Pizza Hut.  The article appears to include a picture of him enjoying his last meal as a free man.  He was promptly expedited.

This past June Mr. Conn again entered a guilty plea relating to all of the above.  Finally, on September 7, 2018 he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his escape, on top of the 12 he had already been sentence to.  Here’s the thing, they are to run consecutively – not concurrently – that means he is going away for some 27 years.  That’s an expensive price to pay for those extra six months of freedom.

End of story?  Not quite.  Not to be forgotten are those thousands of Mr. Conn’s former clients whose benefits were affected due to his and his cohorts’ actions and have had to start the lengthy process of applying for them again, a process that can typically take years.

By the way, it currently takes the Kentucky Offices of Hearing Operations (formally the Offices of Disability Adjudication and Review) on average 18 months just to schedule a hearing.  That does not include the time it takes to process initial applications or the time it takes to produce a decision after having held a hearing.

 

If you or your child have been denied SSA disability benefits or suffer from a severe impairment that is expected to last for more than twelve months and that prevents you from doing any of your past or other work or is causing developmental delay in your child, please contact our office nearest to you to set up a free consultation appointment to discuss your situation.