Feds to ease disability access in hundreds of Kentucky cases linked to disgraced lawyer
Hundreds of people in Eastern Kentucky will have an easier time keeping federal disability payments under a new procedure for handling cases linked to a disgraced, disbarred Eastern Kentucky lawyer.
The Social Security Administration said it would also stop trying to collect money from people who faced repayment orders and would refund money the agency has already collected.
The actions are the latest development related to Eric C. Conn, a lawyer based in Floyd County who at one time ran one of the most lucrative disability practices in the country. Conn secured payments for thousands in the Eastern Kentucky coalfield and millions in fees for himself.
Many of Conn’s former clients lost disability benefits and faced economic hardships in the wake of allegations that he used fraudulent evidence in their cases.
And in many cases, the agency ordered former Conn clients or their survivors to repay tens of thousands of dollars.
The changes announced this week were welcome news for many.
“The Conn crisis has terrified low-income people for nearly a decade, including now the young children and relatives of primary beneficiaries who have passed away and had been told they are still responsible,” said Evan Smith, advocacy director for the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund of Kentucky, Inc., called AppalReD.
AppalReD and Prestsonburg lawyer Ned Pillersdorf have been honored for their fight over several years to line up volunteer lawyers to represent former Conn clients seeking to keep or reinstate disability payments.
Smith said under the changes, about 1,000 former Conn clients won’t have to go through a hearing to maintain their benefits, and the agency’s review of the disability status of several hundred others will be done under a standard that is easier to meet.
The previous hearing process, called re-determination, required Conn clients to prove they were disabled more than 15 years ago in some cases.
The new procedure, called a continuing disability review, will take current disability status into account, making it easier and more fair, Pillersdorf said.
Pillersdorf called the change a “major retreat” from the position the Social Security Administration took before Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley became commissioner of the agency this year.
Pillersdorf, his wife Janet Stumbo, a former Supreme Court and Appeals Court judge in Kentucky, and AppalReD founder John Rosenberg met with O’Malley in March, urging him to adopt a more humane standard for deciding the disability status of Conn’s former clients.
Pillersdorf said the change finally recognizes that Conn’s clients were not complicit in his fraud. Most never met him despite using his office in their cases, Pillersdorf said.
“Commissioner O’Malley showed real courage in reversing course in an agency that unfortunately has been weaponized against our vulnerable neighbors for more than nine years,” Pillersdorf said.
U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, who had interceded to keep disability payments in place for former Conn clients, had also urged O’Malley to use continuing disability reviews instead of re-determination hearings for Conn’s former clients.
O’Malley called Rogers this week to tell him about the change in the hearings and the decision to stop trying to collect alleged over-payments.
“The federal government has ripped up an unfair Social Security bill for hundreds of Eastern Kentuckians!” said Rogers. “This is long-overdue news for Conn’s victims who were awarded money, and then billed to pay it back with no due process. This is a good step toward justice for our people.”
Rogers, a Republican who represents the 5th District in Southern and Eastern Kentucky, also said O’Malley apologized that it took so long to make the change.
O’Malley said the Social Security system was “traumatized by the scale” of Conn’s fraud.
The changes apply to most of Conn’s former clients, but not all. People who have questions can contact AppalReD or Pillersdorf.
The flamboyant Conn, 63, lived in Pikeville and had his office in Floyd County in a complex of connected mobile homes with a large replica of the Lincoln Memorial outside.
He lived high for a while, with a Rolls-Royce, a $1.5 million house paid for in cash, and frequent trips overseas.
In 2017, however, he admitted his success was built on fraud because he had included fake medical and mental-health evidence in clients’ claims and paid a Social Security judge more than $600,000 in bribes to approve benefits for his clients.
He compounded his legal trouble by fleeing the country after pleading guilty but before he was sentenced.
The FBI caught him at a Pizza Hut in Honduras six months later.
A judge ultimately sentenced him to 27 years in prison. He is at a federal prison in New Jersey, scheduled for release in November 2039.
The judge he bribed, David Daugherty, died in prison while serving a four-year sentence.
Charlie Paul Andrus, who was a judge at the Huntington, W.Va., Social Security office with Daugherty, pleaded guilty to trying to help Conn discredit a whistleblower and was sentenced to six months in prison.
Bradley Adkins, a Pikeville psychologist who provided falsified documentation for Conn to use in disability claims, is serving a 25-year sentence.
This story was originally published August 2, 2024 at 12:09 PM.
