Free Republic

A ringleader in one of the biggest Social Security disability fraud cases in U.S. history has pleaded guilty to filing more than 1,700 bogus applications, bilking the government out of potentially a half-billion dollars. But the administration is struggling to figure out how to handle the applicants, many of whom say that even though their applications were falsified, their cases are real and they shouldn’t be punished for having been ensnared by the massive fraud. Eric C. Conn, a prominent lawyer in eastern Kentucky, signed a guilty plea late last month acknowledging the scam, in which he recruited and filed...

Investigators identified nearly 2,000 cases of potentially phony disability claims stemming from a massive Social Security fraud scheme, but three years after the scam was first exposed, the government says it’s still struggling to stop the payments. Only slightly more than 300 cases have been disqualified, and Social Security is still “in the process of effectuating those terminations,” the agency told The Washington Times just days after the accused ringleader and two lead accomplices were indicted on federal fraud charges. Despite three investigations into suspicions of massive fraud, Social Security officials say they are assuming all of the applications are...