‘The Big Conn.’ KY attorney’s Social Security fraud case will be featured in new show
A fraud scandal involving the man dubbed as “Mr. Social Security” has caught the eye of Apple TV+, which was set to debut a new docuseries this week about a Kentucky lawyer who pleaded guilty in “the largest Social Security fraud case in history,” Apple announced.
Apple TV+ announced the new documentary, titled “The Big Conn,” last month. It will tell the story of Eastern Kentucky lawyer Eric Conn, who pleaded guilty in a $550 million Social Security fraud scheme in 2017.
Conn was once one of the top disability lawyers in the nation. He won disability checks for thousands of clients, but caused many of those clients major problems after he was charged with criminal offenses. He promoted himself on television and on billboards throughout Eastern Kentucky as “Mr. Social Security.”
The documentary, featuring additional interviews and behind-the-scenes details, will be a four-part series on Apple TV+ with a companion podcast on Apple Podcasts. The show was set to make its worldwide debut at South by Southwest, a film festival, in the Paramount Theatre with a showing of its first two episodes on Wednesday.
Following the screening, there will be a Q&A with writer/directors James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte.
The show will be released on Apple TV+ on May 6, Apple said.
Conn initially pleaded guilty to one count of stealing from the Social Security Administration and one count of paying illegal gratuities to a federal judge. He submitted false documentation for clients seeking disability payments and paid off a federal administrative law judge who approved the “well over” 1,700 claims.
“I submitted or allowed the submission of medical records that I knew to be fraudulent in nature,” Conn said when U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves asked him to describe his illegal conduct.
Conn was also ordered by a judge to pay $31 million in damages and penalties to the federal government and two former Social Security Administration employees.
Conn fled the country after he was allowed to remain free on bond before he was sentenced. FBI officials said at the time that he cut off his GPS monitor and disappeared. He hid from authorities for six months before being found at a Pizza Hut in La Ceiba, Honduras, a city on the Caribbean coast of the Central American nation.
Conn was sentenced to 27 years in prison after he was apprehended. He’s serving that sentence in a facility in West Virginia.
This story was originally published March 16, 2022 at 6:40 AM.
