LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — The U.S. Social Security Administration is notifying several former clients of disgraced Kentucky attorney Eric Conn that they no longer owe the government money for overpaid disability benefits.
Conn was indicted nearly a decade ago in a $500 million disability scheme involving thousands of clients, doctors and a bribed judge. After Conn’s conviction in 2017, many of his former clients had their disability benefits cut off and were told they owed money to the government.
But in the coming months, the agency will send letters to Conn’s former clients letting them know it “will cease collecting overpayments resulting from Eric Conn’s fraud scheme,” according to a statement from the federal agency sent to the AP.
The eligible clients would have undergone an administrative hearing in which it was determined that they were required to repay some of the benefits they received as Conn clients. The agency said it would also repay money it collected for overpayments.
Ned Pillersdorf, an eastern Kentucky attorney, said some of Conn’s former clients are “in a hole they don’t think they can ever climb out of” because of the overpayment debts they owe the government. Pillersdorf, who along with dozens of attorneys have worked pro bono for the former clients, said he didn’t know how many have been told they are overpaid.
Pillersdorf said the new Social Security administrator, Martin O’Malley, who took over in December, was receptive to attorneys’ requests for help for Conn’s former clients.
“For the first time, not only did someone call back, but we also had a personal meeting with the new commissioner,” he said during a conference call on Monday.
After the fraud came to light, approximately 1,700 of Conn’s former clients went through hearings to reapply for their benefits, and about half lost them. About 230 of those who lost their benefits were able to have them reinstated years later through court orders.
Conn bribed doctors with $400 payments to falsify medical records for his clients, then paid off a judge to approve lifetime benefits. His 2017 plea deal would have sent him to prison for 12 years, but Conn cut off his ankle monitor and fled the country, leading to a six-month hunt by federal agents that ended with his capture in Honduras. The escape attempt 15 years added to his sentence.
