by Ben Vernia | April 24th, 2018
On April 2, cable network CNBC aired an episode of its American Greed documentary series titled “Conn’s Job,” featuring interviews with Vernia Law Firm clients Jennifer Griffith and Sarah Carver, who filed a qui tam whistleblower suit against now-disbarred disability attorney Eric Conn and Social Security Administration Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) David Daugherty. Both men pleaded guilty in a parallel criminal case, as did former Chief ALJ Charlie Andrus, to a crime related to a scheme between Andrus and Conn to performance covert surveillance on, and fabricate evidence against Ms. Carver.
The Vernia Law Firm brought the case in 2011 along with Lexington, Kentucky based Wallingford Law and Wohlander Law (whose principal attorney, Mark Wohlander, is also featured on the CNBC show).
The case exposed fraud in connection with nearly 4000 determinations of Social Security disability benefits, which resulted in hundreds of millions in damages to the United States, and the need to redetermine the benefits of thousands of beneficiaries – many of whom would have been entitled to benefits for reasons other than the bogus ones advanced by Conn and approved by Daugherty.
