After a decade, Conn finally indicted

In an indictment unsealed Tuesday, a federal grand jury accused Pikeville lawyer Eric C. Conn, a former administrative law judge and a psychologist of a host of crimes related to a scheme to cheat the Social Security Disability program that might have cost taxpayers north of $600 million.

Typically, an indictment like this would earn a round of awe and praise from good-government types like us who advocate for aggressive federal investigation and prosecution of the white-collar types who try to cheat us all.

The trouble here, though, is the word “aggressive.”

Despite the enormous amount of money involved, the possible corruption of the federal judicial system, hundreds of people possibly misrepresented by Conn, and the abundant evidence accumulated by Senate investigators, journalists and whistle-blowers, federal authorities have been remarkably relaxed about this case.

Even with these indictments, they are a long way from bringing to justice all those who appear to be responsible for participating in, or choosing to ignore, this fraud on taxpayers.

Welcome though they may be, the charges against Conn and his alleged confederates come:

▪  A decade after employees in the office of the Social Security administrative law judge began blowing the whistle on the too-close connection between him and Conn.

▪  Five years after the Wall Street Journal reported on the scheme in detail, with names.

▪  More than four years after the whistle-blowers filed a civil complaint laying out the alleged scheme.

▪  More than 2 1/2 years after a Senate report, running to almost 200 pages, on Conn was released.

▪  Almost a year after the Social Security Administration suspended disability benefits for 900 people represented by Conn with no hearings, although at the urging of U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Somerset, the benefits were restored while the cases are reviewed.

Remarkably, despite this history and this week’s indictments, Conn remains a member in good standing with the Kentucky Bar Association.

Understandably, frustrations abound among those who tried to prod the Social Security Administration and federal prosecutors to pursue Conn.

“It was a slam-dunk case,” said former U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, who led the 2013 Senate investigation. “We had witnesses, we had bank records, we had medical files, we had everything.” Coburn said the Senate sent all of its evidence to U.S. attorneys in West Virginia and Kentucky, “but for whatever reason, nobody wanted to move on it.”

Sarah Carver, one of the whistle-blowers from the Huntington, W.Va., Social Security office, told reporter John Cheves that the indictments aren’t enough.

“Some of those managers (who didn’t act when alerted to the scheme) were allowed to retire with their full benefits. Others were actually promoted to higher positions,” she said. “My main concern is whether the SSA will finally acknowledge the fraud and hold accountable the managers who had knowledge of it for years.”

According to the Senate report, the chief administrative law judge in Huntington worked with Conn to discredit Carver when they suspected her of being a whistle-blower. When video surveillance of Carver didn’t turn up anything incriminating, they “fabricated evidence and sent it to her superiors.”

Unless he chooses to make a deal with the feds, Conn will get his constitutionally guaranteed day in court. A rich man thanks to his disability practice, he will be competently represented.

But this case leaves the rest of us citizen/taxpayers with an uneasy feeling that for us, justice delayed might well be justice denied.

Has the Social Security Administration overhauled how it manages and tracks disability cases to spot evidence of fraud, as was abundant here?

Will prosecutors or the SSA go after those who ignored reports of abuse and instead tried to punish the messenger?

If past behavior is an indicator of future performance, the answer is, probably not.

And that, like the decade of inaction on Eric C. Conn, is a shame.

This story was originally published April 6, 2016 at 4:10 PM with the headline "After a decade, Conn finally indicted."