110. The Mess (Eric C. Conn)

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This episode of Swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences.

Listener discretion is advised.

This is the story of your social security, a story in the American tradition of self-support and self-respect.

Here's a quick American history lesson.

On August 14, 1935, President Franklin D.

Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act as part of the New Deal.

This new law created, among other things, a pay-as-you-go social insurance program that provided a continuing income for retired workers aged 65 and older.

A payroll tax would provide the funding to ensure that the country's most vulnerable citizens would not die in abject poverty.

Truly a radical idea by today's standards.

And believe it or not, in 1956, the Social Security Program became even more compassionate when it was amended to provide potentially lifetime monthly cash benefits to disabled children and disabled workers between the ages of 50 to 64.

In 1960, the program was expanded even further to include disabled workers of any age and their dependents.

This is called Social Security Disability Insurance, and surprisingly, it still exists.

But unsurprisingly, the annual cost of operating the program has grown exponentially to about $200 billion a year.

And it's not because the disabled population of the United States is living lavishly on your dime.

In fact, someone completely reliant on SSDI is barely able to keep their head above the poverty line.

No, the reason the cost of the federal disability program has increased so drastically, in addition to the rising cost of literally everything, is that the number of disabled beneficiaries has has grown dramatically from 1.8 million in 1970 to 9.2 million in 2021.

At one point, one in 20 adult Americans qualified for federal disability.

What does that even mean?

Great question.

The Social Security Administration currently defines a disability as the inability to engage in any substantial gainful activity.

by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment that can be expected to result in death or which has lasted or can be expected to last for a continuous period of not less than 12 months.

And therein lies the complexity.

As Claire Galifaro wrote for the Associated Press, the very definition of disability is open for debate.

Mental illness is hard to measure.

Pain is impossible to see.

Furthermore, disability can be defined by an individual's own capability.

Consider this, a wheelchair-bound astrophysicist versus a wheelchair-bound landscaper.

Similar situations, but only the earning potential of the worker who made a career in a physically demanding industry would be significantly affected by his or her injury.

Who's disabled?

It's subjective.

Who decides?

Well, it's a process.

To qualify for benefits, an individual needs to submit evidence of a physiological or psychological abnormality.

from a licensed medical professional.

A local Social Security Administration field office will then review that individual's application and make a judgment.

Statistically, only about a third of the applicants are approved at this stage.

For the two-thirds who were denied, not all hope is lost.

You can regroup and resubmit, but you'll probably be rejected again.

If that happens, you have the option to appeal your claim in front of one of the country's 2,000-ish administrative law judges.

In most cases, you'll want to hire an attorney specializing in social security disability law to better your chances.

But even then, it's no guarantee.

Historically, ALJs only approved 50 to 60% of the cases they hear.

Will you be one of them?

Maybe if you're lucky, but let's face it, if that were the case, you probably wouldn't be asking me.

And now, under a recent change in the law, payments for you at age 50 if you become too disabled to work.

So if you are disabled and haven't contacted your Social Security office, call or write today.

Now familiar with the subjectivity and lack of consistency found throughout the process of applying and obtaining benefits from the United States Social Security Disability Insurance Program, is it any wonder that this well-intended, essential, giant pull of money is rife with abuse and shortcutting?

Take Larry Popp, for example.

Larry was declared legally blind in 2004.

He was only 55 years old and could no longer work, read, or drive, but was captured on video doing all of those things and more just four years later.

The U.S.

Office of Inspector General, which investigates and prosecutes these types of crimes, was tipped off by Larry Popp's ex-wife after the IRS came after her, claiming she owed thousands in back taxes for disability benefits for which Larry, unbeknownst to her, had signed up the entire family.

No, Larry was fine.

He regained his vision.

You could find him on the lake in his boat or working at one of the two businesses he owned.

Actually, his ex-wife shared with investigators that he had just sold one of those businesses for $700,000.

All the while, he had collected $3,200 a month in SSDI for a total of $175,000 in counting.

In 2009, the OIG began recording Larry Popp's phone calls and surveying his movements.

In one video, the investigators watched the supposed blind man drive himself to the social security office to renew his payments.

He parked a block away and walked to make sure no one saw.

All right, Wednesday morning, September 24th, approximately 8.03 a.m.

Conducting surveillance on Lawrence Popp.

Appears like Lawrence Popp is walking towards the Social Security office now.

He parked a block away.

Ultimately, Larry Popp was charged with disability fraud in order to repay all the benefits he had collected and serve one year in prison.

Let's not be naive.

There are thousands of Larry Popps out there, and the disability insurance program would surely save millions upon millions of dollars if they were all caught.

But in the grand scheme, people like Larry Popp are insignificant players, solo actors.

The real damage happens when the abuse is widespread and systematic.

We now turn our hearing to Social Security Disability Fraud Conspiracy in Puerto Rico.

On August the 21st, the United States Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico announced the arrest and indictment of 75 individuals for Social Security fraud.

Let me repeat that number.

75 arrested for allegedly seeking to defraud Social Security.

So we're not talking about a few bad apples here.

In March 2011, a journalist named Damian Palletta at the Wall Street Journal wrote an article that brought attention to the fact that the U.S.

territory of Puerto Rico was one of the easiest places to qualify for Social Security disability insurance.

The island contained nine of the top 10 U.S.

zip codes for disabled workers.

The rate of approval had almost doubled in less than four years.

The question was why?

At the time, insolvency of the disability program was a real concern.

SSDI had been operating at a deficit in recent years.

Weeding out fraud became an easy target for cost savings, especially after the non-partisan Government Accountability Office released a report alleging that some undeserving people were actively receiving benefits.

Unsurprisingly, the GAO's suspicions were soon proved correct, specifically in Puerto Rico.

Employees at the Puerto Rico Disability Determination Service had sounded the alarm years earlier when they noticed that many of the applications it received contained nearly identical medical reports describing disabling psychiatric conditions.

It was frontline employees at the Puerto Rico office who first detected this conspiracy as part of their work reviewing benefit applications.

The Office of Inspector General eventually opened a criminal investigation into the matter on March 24th, 2011.

It discovered that a former Social Security worker of 32 years named Samuel Torres-Crespo was the mastermind of a popular Puerto Rican fraud scheme.

Torres-Crespo would prepare an approval-ready benefits application for his claimants that included fake disabilities and then refer them to doctors who would supply the necessary medical documentation for a $500 fee.

When the application was accepted, and it would be, Samuel Torres-Crespo would collect 25% or $6,000 of his claimants' retroactive payments, whichever amount was less.

On August 21st, 2013, Torres Crespo, three doctors, and 71 fraudulent disability beneficiaries were arrested and taken to a basketball arena in San Juan.

There, they were processed and charged with multiple counts, including mail and wire fraud.

It was estimated that the scheme's beneficiaries had collected more than $2 million in fraudulent payments.

In response to the massive bust, the U.S.

House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees the Social Security program held a hearing.

About four weeks ago in the early morning hours, 19 OIG special agents, more than 125 FBI special agents, and about 150 Puerto Rico Police Department officers successfully executed 69 arrest warrants within a few hours.

The arrests were meticulously planned and accomplished without incident.

As a result of the investigation, Beatrice Disman, the Regional Commissioner for Social Security's New York region, which holds jurisdiction over Puerto Rico, explained at the subcommittee hearing that the benefits for as many as 6,600 people on Puerto Rico would be, quote, redetermined and possibly terminated because the medical evidence provided by the indicted medical doctors was tainted.

In redetermining these cases, we will disregard the tainted medical evidence.

If the remaining evidence does not support our original allowance, we will suspend the benefits, providing the opportunity to submit additional medical evidence prior to a final determination.

Beneficiaries will receive notification if we terminate their benefits and assess an overpayment.

What a mess, especially for those who are legitimately disabled.

Once again, they would be required to prove it.

Your primary source of income, back in the hands of a generous green stamper in a government office somewhere, or under the gaze of a cold-hearted administrative law judge having a particularly bad day.

If you were lucky, you wouldn't have to ask.

Let me ask you a quick question.

Has there ever been a case as big as this in the history of Social Security, in your opinion?

Yes or no?

No, there has not been anyone as big as this.

Up until that point, the Puerto Rico conspiracy was the largest Social Security disability fraud in U.S.

and U.S.

adjacent history.

It would hold that title for about a year until 2014, when it was discovered that an estimated $400 million in benefits had been fraudulently paid out over 20 years.

to 100-plus New York City firefighters and cops who were faking disabilities.

That record would be broken in less than two years.

Coincidentally, just months after raising questions about Puerto Rico back in early 2011, Damian Palleta authored another Wall Street Journal article in a series focused on Social Security.

This one shined a light on an administrative law judge with an exceptionally high approval rate for claimants.

That article proved to be one of the first pulls at a string.

that would eventually unravel another massive conspiracy.

A Kentucky lawyer is suspected of orchestrating one of the largest social security disability fraud schemes in American history on this episode of Swindled.

They bribed government officials to find accounting for clear violations of the A State law earlier.

Tens of millions of dollars.

Dummy up its books and records into high public health.

And it's responsible for the collapse of the entire system.

In the troll of some god of swindler, etc.

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The laws of probability and chance are that when hundreds of thousands of Social Security disability claims are filed and denied each year, that a countless number of mistakes are made.

During this portion of the Eric C.

Kahn law firm tour of how the social security disability process works, you will see one of the social security doctors, and the government doctor takes a quick look and says, no, it's time to go.

And now you are turned down, and the non-stop red tape continues.

Life has many funny turns for us, wrote Eric Christopher Kahn at the height of his career in 2011.

Sometimes the most wonderful things are those things we do not plan.

You often see people in certain professions and wonder how they got there.

In many cases, they got there simply by accident.

My story is no different.

Eric Kahn ended up back in Floyd County after returning to the States from the First Gulf War to discover that his wife had fallen in love with another man.

He moved into a gifted trailer on his parents' property.

Though he had escaped the trappings of Appalachia at different times in his life, most notably attending law school in Ohio, Eric Kahn, as different as he may be from the rest of the population, was back where he belonged.

The rural mountains of eastern Kentucky had always been home.

It's where Eric grew up, where he attended high school, and where he would begin his new career.

In the early 90s, Khan applied to several legal firms in the region and accepted a position with a group that practiced workers' compensation and social security disability law.

Eric claims that he wasn't even aware that the U.S.

had a disability program at the time.

And the partners at that firm weren't much more knowledgeable in the area, as their primary focus was on workers' comp.

In fact, Eric Kahn became the resident expert in social security disability cases after winning his first case by reading a small book in the law library and ignoring his superior's advice.

This is a niche in which I can become a guru and dominate, Eric claims he told himself.

So in 1993, Eric C.

Kahn, at 33 years old, opened his own law firm in that trailer on his parents' property in Stanville, Kentucky, a 500-person town.

Kahn later told the Pikeville Medical Center's weekly newspaper that at first, he only used two of the rooms of the double-wide because he couldn't afford to replace the carpet in the other ones.

Also, at first, Eric Kahn practiced law outside of what he now claimed was his expertise.

In 1998, Eric C.

Kahn volunteered pro bono to defend Natasha Cornette, who, along with five friends, was accused of kidnapping and murdering the Lillilid family at a rest stop in Tennessee before stealing their van.

Only the two-year-old son Peter Lillilid survived.

Eric C.

Kahn, angling for an insanity plea, advised his client, Natasha Cornette, to proclaim publicly that she was the Antichrist.

Cornette's Kentucky attorney says all four defendants share an interest in Satanism.

According to Eric Kahn, Cornette says the cuts in her arm, like the cuts you see here, are made to conjure up the devil.

At age 13, she became obsessed with Ouija boards and it grew from there.

She got into Dungeons and Dragons and she just kept on.

She started devouring books on witchcraft and then finally she said she got to the point where the devil himself educated her instead of the books.

She believed that she's a daughter of Satan.

Eric Kahn was eventually removed from the case after his co-counsel refused to play along with that strategy and withdrew.

To avoid the death penalty, on the advice of new counsel, Natasha Cornette and her co-defendants pleaded guilty and were sentenced to life in prison.

The entire ordeal was a major embarrassment for the young Kentucky lawyer, but he kind of liked the attention.

Still, he would need to pivot to salvage his floundering career.

Eastern Kentucky and nearby West Virginia were home to a growing population of beaten-up beaten-up coal miners amid a dying industry.

Reportedly, 20% of the population in those areas qualify for disability benefits, three times the national average.

According to the Associated Press, in Floyd County, where Kahn practiced, traffic jams form and grocery stores are overrun during the first week of every month.

Quote, even the Papa John's doubles its number of delivery drivers.

Eric C.

Kahn capitalized on the dystopia by specializing in social security disability cases and advertising his services aggressively.

Call 1-800-232-HERT for all your SSI, workers' compensation, or personal injury needs.

In a few short years, the incessant radio and television ads, in tandem with billboards that littered every mile marker of Highway 23's beautiful mountain scenery, transformed Eric C.

Khan into one of those familiar, tacky local celebrities.

He would send a group of attractive young women he dubbed the Khan Hotties to local events wearing short shorts and tight tank tops emblazoned with his slogans.

He's Eric C.

Khan, the man who never sleeps, the man who gets the job done, the man known as Mr.

Social Security.

You need experience.

You need results.

You need the E-Man.

Eric C.

Kahn gets the job done.

Eric Khan's marketing tactics, paired with his genius level IQ, which he bragged about on his website, helped transform the small law office into a law complex.

The one-trailer operation in Stanville expanded to a half-dozen trailers welded together that housed up to 40 employees, including three additional attorneys and his domineering mommy, Patsy, the office manager.

The Eric C.

Khan Law Complex and its branch in Ashland became a one-stop shop for disability claimants, complete with a filing office and medical wing.

It's here.

Sign up for your Social Security Disability or SSI at Eric's office.

It's here.

Appeal your case at Eric's office.

It's here.

See a doctor at Eric's office.

It's here.

Call 1-800-232-HERT.

That's 1-800-232-HURT.

Mr.

Social Security was easy to find.

The billboards, topped with life-size mannequins of the lawyer, or mannequins as the locals called them, would lead the way.

Or just keep an eye out for the 19-foot-tall replica of the Lincoln Memorial, which Eric had installed in the parking lot.

It was visible from the highway.

The Lincoln Memorial is in Stanville.

Well, not the real Lincoln Memorial, just a replica, said to be the largest copy in the world.

Attorney Eric Kahn spent $400,000 to put it on his property.

Why would someone do that?

I love statues.

Fair enough.

Besides, for Eric C.

Kahn, $400,000 was pocket change.

By the early 2000s, the Eric C.

Kahn Law Complex had become the third most lucrative disability firm in the United States.

On average, the group handled 2,000 cases per year, or about 60 to 65% of all disability claims in the region, reportedly raking in over $20 million in fees in a decade's time.

Much of the success can be attributed to Eric Kahn's promise of obtaining disability application decisions for his clients in 30 days or less.

The national average for such decisions was 18 months.

Kahn's turnaround was unmatched.

As was his indulgent lifestyle, at least in eastern Kentucky, Eric Khan paid cash for a $1.5 million, 7,500 square foot brick mansion in a gated community where he would host debaucherous parties.

There was even a stripper pole in the basement, reserved for Kentucky's finest.

If Eric C.

Khan had any weakness, it was women.

He taught himself Spanish and other languages from a tape and traveled the world.

Vietnam, Colombia, Barbados.

At one point, he even purchased his own goth-themed brothel in Thailand called Vampire Gogo.

He was the original passport bro.

But for me, it's not just, it's fun to be alive because usually I'm a traditional boring lawyer who has to conform to, of course, to all the rules and regulations of the bar.

So some things I like to have fun on, and advertising and those kind of things give me a certain amount of leeway that I, a lot of leeway that I don't have in the practice of law.

So it's fun.

I like to have fun.

Inevitably, Khan would return to the States with a new wife, each younger than the last.

The self-described traditional boring lawyer had been married 16 or 17 different times by his count.

He even had a fling with adult actress Raven Riley.

Their totally authentic breakup phone call was caught on tape.

Fuck you, Eric C.

Conn.

I can have any man I want.

I don't need you.

I was tired of your ass anyways.

I don't need your money, honey.

Matter of fact, you can take your Mercedes, your beach house, your Armani suits, and shove it up your ass.

P.S., you fucking prick.

You can tell your friend Don he can go to hell too.

Life was an action movie, and Eric C.

Khan was the star.

He felt invincible, flying around in his Rolls-Royce and sending voodoo dolls to rival disability attorneys.

At one point in 2011, he even campaigned for an Obama appointment to the Social Security Advisory Board.

Khan spent $40,000 to produce a music video that featured him dancing with Amber Lee Ettinger, a woman who had gained recent notoriety for her cringe-inducing viral video about having a crush on the president.

Social Security is all I personally do as far as my practice, and it would be nice to be recognized in that capacity.

Eric Khan explained as to why he wanted the appointment.

Soon, the Social Security Disability Attorney would receive more recognition than he had ever bargained for, thanks to guess who?

What?

No.

No, he never responded to Khan's campaign.

It was Damian Palletta at the Wall Street Journal again who would usher Eric C.

Kahn into the national spotlight because of his cozy relationship with a man named David Doherty.

David Black Doherty, known as D.B.

to his friends, was a 75-year-old, avid karaoke singer and thespian at the local performing arts center in Huntington, West Virginia.

More importantly, he had been a social security administrative law judge for more than 20 years.

A very lenient one, Palletta noted in his May 2011 front-page story.

In 2010, Doherty heard almost 1,300 disability cases and awarded benefits in all but four, a 99.7% approval rating.

Again, the national average approval rate among ALJs was between 50 and 60%.

Yet, year after year, David Black Doherty consistently approved a staggering 95% of the cases he heard.

by far the highest award rate in the country.

And Judge Doherty did so at rapid speed, routinely seeing and approving as many as 20 clients in a day sometimes.

The typical judge could process maybe five or six on a good day.

Those typical judges had been complaining about Doherty's numbers for years, but Doherty explained to the Wall Street Journal that he preferred to pack a schedule like that because he suffered from dyslexia.

And there was nothing wrong with it.

Every decision he made, Doherty claimed, was quote, fully supported by relevant medical reports and physical and or mental residual functionary capacity assessments from treating or examining doctors or other medical professionals.

However, not everyone was convinced, especially Jennifer Griffith, a master docket clerk at the Huntington, West Virginia Social Security Office of Disability and Adjudication Review.

She was quoted in the article: Years earlier, in 2006, Jennifer had noticed something peculiar about Judge Doherty's cases.

A disproportionate number of the claimants were represented by one eastern Kentucky lawyer named Eric C.

Kahn.

Something was amiss.

So Jennifer Griffith and her superior at the Huntington Odar, senior case technician Sarah Carver, analyzed Judge David Doherty's process and noticed some alarming trends.

Dougherty was logging into the docket system and reassigning Eric Kahn's cases to himself, prioritizing them and processing them at lightning speed, sometimes without even holding a formal hearing.

We made sure management knew about it, Jennifer Griffith told the Wall Street Journal.

We gave them every chance to come up with some sort of logical explanation or to get it to stop, and that never happened.

They would turn around and question

why we were reporting it or, you know,

why are you wasting your time emailing us and not doing your job.

It became apparent to Jennifer Griffith and Sarah Carver that management at the Huntington, West Virginia Social Security ODAR was not only aware of what was happening, but also was allowing it to happen.

In fact, during months in which the office had already achieved its required metrics, the managers would hold Dougherty's cases back for processing until the following month in order to pad future numbers.

Frustrated and stressed by the inaction at every level of government to which the employees blew the whistle, Jennifer Griffith left her Odar job in 2007.

Sarah Carver remained on staff to face harassment by her superiors, harassment that only escalated after the Office of Inspector General visited the Huntington office the same day Damian Palleta's article was published, signaling that a criminal investigation was open.

In response, management at the Huntington Social Security office installed security cameras and soundproof doors.

The building was scanned for listening devices.

Paper shredders were purchased.

Federal records were destroyed.

Eric C.

Kahn responded in a similar manner.

Though he denied interview requests for the Wall Street Journal, Kahn did issue a statement denying any wrongdoing.

But behind the scenes, the lawyer was panicking and paranoid.

According to former employees, Eric hired a document disposal company to clean out a warehouse.

He ordered hard drives to be smashed with hammers, and he burned every piece of paper with Judge Doherty's name on it and a bonfire behind his office that smoldered for four days.

In total, Eric C.

Kahn reportedly destroyed over two and a half million pages of documentation, client health records included.

This is Eric Khan's attorney, Joseph Lambert.

Any documents that were destroyed were not destroyed to obstruct any kind of investigation or to harm the individuals that Mr.

Kahn represented.

They were simply destroyed as a necessary matter so far as storage space was concerned.

Additionally, in secret, Eric Kahn began meeting with a man named Charlie Paul Andres.

Charlie Andres was the chief administrative law judge at the Huntington, West Virginia Social Security Office of Disability and Adjudication Review.

In other words, the boss.

He was reportedly personally embarrassed by his office's recent notoriety.

Together, Eric Kahn and Charlie Andrus hatched a retaliation plan against Sarah Carver, the SSA employee turned whistleblower who was meeting with investigators and stirring up all this drama.

Their plan was to catch Miss Carver in the act of violating the federal government's work-from-home policy, which would lead to her termination.

Kahn tasked his right-hand man, Curtis Lee Wyatt, with spying on the woman.

But Sarah Carver was never seen violating any policies, so Khan and Andrus fabricated the footage by using a day-old newspaper and NPR broadcast to make it seem like Sarah was ditching work to shop, when in reality, it was her day off.

The plan was ineffective because Curtis Lee Wyatt, or whoever, sent the smoking gun to the wrong address.

At the time, Sarah Carver had no idea any of this was happening.

Later that year, Sarah Carver and Jennifer Griffith filed a federal whistleblower lawsuit against Eric C.

Kahn and ALJ David Doherty under the False Claims Act.

That lawsuit remained sealed for years before a federal judge finally dismissed most of it because the claims lacked specificity.

The government had also declined to prosecute anybody in that case.

In fact, the government had declined to prosecute anybody at all.

Almost two years had passed since Eric Kahn and the others were implicated in the Wall Street Journal article.

Despite the optics of the Kahn and Doherty relationship, clearly more concrete evidence was needed.

So, the investigation continued.

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You can't talk about your relationship with George Doherty or your incredible success in disability court.

Well, that's tempting.

Oh, I would love to comment on some of that, but no, sir, I really don't think I should right now.

The only fallout so far from Damian Palletta's Wall Street Journal article almost two and a half years after it was published was that Charlie Andres had been demoted from chief administrative law judge of the Huntington Odar and ALJ David Doherty had been placed on administrative leave pending investigation.

Dougherty opted to retire instead.

The judge's relationship with Khan, the lawyer, regained attention in October 2013 when CBS's 60 Minutes produced an episode focused on disability in America.

The segment aired on Sunday, October 6, 2013.

More importantly, it coincided with a Senate hearing scheduled for the following day, during which the findings of a two-year investigation of disability fraud by the U.S.

Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs would be shared publicly for the first time.

That hearing would specifically focus on the Eric C.

Kahn and David Doherty conspiracy.

This afternoon, we're going to focus on the findings of a two-year investigation into the Huntington, West Virginia Social Security Office of Disability Adjudication and Review.

Specifically, the investigative report we are releasing details how one lawyer, one judge, and a group of doctors financially benefited by working together to manufacture bogus, fraudulent medical evidence to award disability benefits to over 1,800 people.

The first panel of the day featured the whistleblowers, Jennifer Griffith and Sarah Carver.

who testified in detail how Judge David Doherty demonstrated overt favoritism in assigning and approving clients represented by Eric C.

Kahn, and how Huntington Odar management knew about it and continually swept it under the rug.

In that email, I directly warned my managers, and I quote, the Eric Kahn situation is going to bite this office in the butt one day.

It was a mass collusion between a judge and an attorney, testified Sarah Carver, who, along with Jennifer Griffith, blew the whistle for the first time seven years earlier.

No one had been held accountable.

Sarah described how telling the truth had affected her life since then.

Management has been allowed to harass, intimidate, oppress, stalk, discipline, ostracize, monitor, and make my life as miserable as possible for the last seven years.

Knowing that a private investigator was hired to follow me has been very traumatizing.

I still fear for my safety and the safety of my family.

Also, knowing that employees have been terminated for their association with me has left me with such a burdensome feeling.

Also seated on that first committee panel were longtime Eric C.

Kahn Law Complex employees, Jamie Sloan and Melinda Martin Hicks.

The former office workers shed light on how Kahn and Judge Doherty coordinated their cases.

One of my responsibilities at the firm was to field calls from Administrative Law Law Judge David B.

Daugherty.

Each month, Judge Dougherty called and gave the following information for 30 to 50 Social Security disability claimants represented by Eric Kahn.

First name, last name, the claimant's Social Security number, and either mental or physical.

I created a list of these claimants, which was known throughout the office as a monthly DB list.

That list of claimants was helpful in generating the necessary medical information required for a favorable application.

According to his longtime employees, Eric Khan relied on doctors who had been in trouble recently to do his bidding.

Those with ethics violations, malpractice lawsuits, disciplinary actions, license revocations, and such.

Eric Khan and these types of shady medical professionals were a perfect match, as evidenced by their naughty nicknames for each other.

He actually had said before that he referred to those as whore doctors.

He said that if they had sanctions and had their license suspended before, that he could get them to do whatever he wanted and they were cheaper to work with.

You heard him say that?

Yes.

Yes, sir.

The second panel of the day featured three of Eric Kahn's favorite dirty little sluts, Dr.

David Hurd and Dr.

Srinivas Amaceti, both MDs, and Dr.

Bradley Atkins, a psychologist, were subpoenaed to testify.

Unfortunately, Kahn's long-tenured bottom bitch, Dr.

Frederick Huffnagel of Bowling Green, was unable to appear since he had died three years earlier.

The investigation discovered that Eric Kahn had paid Dr.

Huffnagel almost a million dollars in, quote, consulting fees during a four-year period.

It was probably the easiest money he had ever made.

Kahn would hand over the medical evaluation forms to the doctors, pre-filled with the information necessary for a disability claimant to be approved for benefits.

There were reportedly 15 variations of the form for both mental and physical ailments that contained the same exact verbiage and descriptions of limitations.

Eric Kahn would pay the doctors $400 each time they signed their names.

The doctors would set up on site at the Eric C.

Kahn Law Complex's medical suite in Stanville and knock out dozens of patients in a day.

Dr.

David Hurr immediately pleaded the fifth and was excused from the hearing.

Dr.

Amaseti and Dr.

Atkins stayed to testify, but denied any intentional wrongdoing.

Bradley Atkins, the psychologist who was paid almost $200,000 in consulting fees, was asked if it, you know, felt weird to sign a medical evaluation form prepared by someone else.

Never mind the legal standards.

I can understand and appreciate where that might be, sometimes confusing to people who don't deal with the law on a regular basis.

But ethically, the training that you received would suggest that you shouldn't just rubber stamp an evaluation someone else did.

At that time,

it didn't seem unethical to me.

Thank you.

My time's up.

That's my testimony.

It was time for the main course.

The third panel would feature Kentucky Disability Lawyer Eric C.

Kahn, retired Huntington, West Virginia Administrative Law Judge David B.

Doherty, and Charlie Andrus, the former chief administrative law judge of the Huntington Office of Disability and Adjudication Review.

Senate investigators had discovered that Eric Kahn had paid Judge D.B.

Doherty $10,000 cash every month for years, $609,000 in total for his role in the conspiracy.

In exchange, Judge Doherty approved more than 3,000 of Eric Khan's disability applicants, no questions asked.

For each one, Khan earned up to $6,000 in representative fees from the Social Security Administration.

From 2001 to 2013, the lawyer had collected almost $23 million in those fees.

More than $7 million of that total was generated from the Doherty cases alone.

As a result, more than $550 million in Social Security disability benefits have been paid out to claimants on the basis of fraudulent medical information and sham hearings.

What do you have to say for yourself, Mr.

Kahn?

My lawyer, Abby Loyal, sent a letter on October 7th explaining the reasons that I am not going to testify today.

And pursuant to that letter, I respectfully assert my constitutional right not to testify here today, sir.

Is it your intention?

Let me just follow up with with that, Mr.

Connor.

Is it your intention to assert your Fifth Amendment right in response to any question that might be directed to you by the committee today?

It is, sir.

Well, given the fact that you intend to assert a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to all questions asked of you by this committee, you are excused.

Thank you, sir.

Fine.

What about you, Mr.

Doherty?

Mr.

Doherty?

Hello?

Are you there?

Excuse us, ladies and gentlemen, but it seems that David B.

Doherty has decided to completely ignore his subpoena.

He failed to appear.

Charlie Andres was on hand to testify, at least.

The former chief ALJ, whose role includes overseeing the other ALJs, admitted he was aware of Judge Doherty's extraordinary approval rate, but chalked it up to judicial independence.

An answer that disgusted Carl Levin, the senator from Michigan.

I find this incredible.

And your invocation of the term judicial independence I find to be frankly despicable.

Judge, I'm looking you right in the eye.

I find your invocation of judicial independence to be something which, frankly, you ought to be ashamed of as a lawyer.

This has got nothing to do with judicial independence.

Perhaps even more shameful were Judge Charlie Andres's retaliatory actions against his whistleblowing employee.

How do you justify that, Charlie?

I don't.

It was a very stupid and wrong thing to do.

The Senate committee hearing adjourned and culminated in a 161-page report titled, How Some Legal, Medical, and Judicial Professionals Abuse Social Security Disability Programs for the Country's Most Vulnerable, a case study of the Khan Law Firm.

We sent all this evidence we had accumulated to the U.S.

attorneys in West Virginia and in that part of Kentucky, Senator Tom Coburn later told the Lexington Herald leader.

It was a slam-dunk case.

I mean, we had witnesses, we had bank records, we had the medical files, we had everything, but for whatever reason, nobody wanted to move on it.

Massive fraud wrapped with a bow.

Yet again, criminal charges were not filed.

Anyway, did anyone ever track down Judge David Doherty?

We're learning more today about a new twist in the disability fraud case that landed a Kentucky attorney and a West Virginia judge under fire.

A police report obtained by WKYT says Doherty tried to commit suicide.

Oh, that's not good.

About a week after the Senate hearing, it was reported that 79-year-old Judge Doherty was found unconscious in his car at a church parking lot in Barbersville, West Virginia.

There were empty bottles of liquor and prescription pills in the passenger seat, and there was a garden hose taped to the car's exhaust pipe beating into the rear passenger window.

Fortunately, the hose melted and David Doherty fully recovered.

As did Eric Kahn, who dropped off the radar for a while post-Senate hearing.

He supposedly left the country to let it all blow over, and eventually it did.

When he returned, Kahn, who remained in good standing with the Kentucky Bar Association, resumed his practice like nothing ever happened.

For nearly 20 years, he's poured his blood, sweat, and tears into building his practice from the ground up through hard work and conviction.

He's not one to walk away from a fight.

That's just who he is, and that's his story.

That may not be the story you've heard from those who don't know the facts, but hasn't anyone said something about you that isn't true?

So, I got a question for you: when it comes to your social security and disability, whom do you trust?

When Eric C.

Kahn represents you, there will be no fear.

Eric,

We need you back.

I never left.

A hero's welcome.

All of Appalachia was rooting for their local boy who had made it big.

But that sentiment would sour dramatically a year and a half after the Senate hearing.

On May 18th, 2015, 900 of Eric C.

Kahn's former clients received letters in the mail from the Office of Inspector General.

It was bad news.

We are suspending your disability benefits, the letter read.

There is reason to believe fraud was involved in the original application.

All medical information submitted by the four doctors named at the Senate Committee hearing would be disregarded.

The Social Security Administration would redetermine the eligibility of the beneficiaries on an individual basis.

Anyone who wanted to reapply was given 10 days to collect and submit their legitimate medical records.

The Social Security Administration recently sent out a letter to some of Eric C.

Khan's clients saying their benefits have been suspended.

This blanket ban approach to the situation created so many problems.

Obviously, the immediate suspension of payments was a financial disaster for those who solely depended on it, which presumably was almost everybody.

No money for medication, no money for the light bill.

There were stories of Khan's former clients selling their furniture and pawning their engagement rings.

People sleeping in their cars and camping in the woods with their children.

I have

went no lights,

buried no no food.

I felt like you were guilty and you had to prove you're innocent and even then when we tried, you know, they just lumped us all together that we was all guilty because of him.

I've worked off and on all my life ever since I was 16.

And it's a shame that it's come down to.

Sure, these people could schedule a redetermination hearing after they submit their medical information from decades ago.

But for many of Khan's clients, it had been so long they couldn't remember their doctors' names, and their legitimate medical records had been burned or shredded in the cover-up.

For the more recent clients, hospitals were charging a dollar per copied page, with hundreds of pages per patient and no income that could amount to quite the barrier to entry.

I mean this with no disrespect, but it didn't even matter if you could tell the claimant was disabled just by looking at them.

which would take two seconds in some cases.

However, the Social Security Administration was requiring that the claimants prove that they were disabled at the time of application, not currently, which proved to be a frustrating, time-consuming, and sometimes monumental task.

So let's say one of the claimants just said, forget it.

This is too much trouble.

I am not reapplying.

Well, those people would probably be redetermined to have received benefits fraudulently, which may or may not be true, and they would receive a bill for every dollar they'd received over the years, which for some old-timers might amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

These people could probably use a lawyer, which was another issue altogether.

All of a sudden, 900 people in the same rural area needed the same specialized attorney that none of them could afford.

Fortunately, an eastern Kentucky lawyer named Ned Pillersdorf recognized what he described as a true humanitarian crisis and volunteered.

Through the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund, Pillersdorf helped recruit a large network of 150 of the best disability attorneys from around the country to represent Kahn's clients for free.

The lawyers communicated through a listserv that was titled, The Mess.

I'd love to be able to guarantee you we're going to win.

I think we're on a sound legal basis.

I think this is a terrible violation of the due process clause of the Constitution to treat these people this way.

Eric C.

Khan's former clients were guilty by association, and so far they were the only ones being punished.

Even though most of them had done everything by the book, most of them had no idea that Khan had submitted falsified medical documents behind their backs on their behalf to ensure approval.

They were the victims, not the criminals.

The OIG and SSA's immediate suspension and redetermination process did seem like a terrible violation of due process.

But now, without their monthly benefits, these people didn't have time for due process to play out anyway.

It was a desperate situation for many, and for some, the stress was too much to bear.

Leroy Burchett, a former truck driver plagued with chronic pain, found out he could no longer afford his medication, including antidepressants.

So Leroy stopped taking his medication and became hopeless.

He shot himself through the chin in his front yard on June 1st, 2015, two weeks after he had received the suspension letter.

We had no means

to pay for his medications or for him to go to the doctor and to just stop taking it abruptly like that.

horrific.

Melissa Jude was actually on her way to see her attorney, Ned Pillersdorf, to discuss her case when she decided to pull over and shoot herself in the head instead.

Pillersdorf said there had been three or four confirmed suicides among the con clients, adding that the true number was probably double or triple that.

The suicide chatter is way up.

It was especially bad around Christmas.

Unfortunately, people have got this unfortunate notion that suicide is somehow a rational response to losing their benefits.

We want to reassure people the lawyers are doing everything they can to help them.

Not everyone was as sympathetic to the cause.

Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma, whose greatest joy in life seemed to be rooting out a welfare queen, told the Associated Press that the people effective should have known better than to hire a, quote, shyster lawyer.

Coburn told the AP that he believed government dependency was the first step toward tyranny, adding, quote, do I feel sorry for them?

Yes.

Do they have hardships?

Yes.

But do they meet the qualifications of Social Security disability?

Absolutely not.

Here's what the law says.

If you can do any job in the economy, you don't qualify for disability.

Rules have to mean something, and life isn't fair.

At least one other person displayed some empathy, albeit self-serving.

Let me emphasize once again how sorry Mr.

Kahn is for the people who have been victimized, the lawyer's lawyer, Joseph Lambert, said.

But they were victimized by the Social Security Administration and not by Eric Kahn.

Still, Eric Khan's former clients blamed him.

Two of them, including Cheryl Martin, a now benefitless 65-year-old woman battling advanced lung cancer, filed a class action lawsuit against their former lawyer, alleging that he had committed legal malpractice and violation of the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act while obtaining benefits on behalf of his clients.

All of these folks came to Mr.

Kahn seeking representation.

He did represent them.

He won their case, and they're getting their benefits.

So there's been no injury.

Eric C.

Kahn denied any wrongdoing and again pleaded the fifth when subpoenaed to testify.

The lawsuit was eventually dismissed without reward.

Now Eric C.

Kahn has denied all the allegations of fraud and has not been charged.

A hearing is scheduled for Thursday morning in Floyd County Circuit Court after a judge ordered Kahn to not destroy assets.

On a related note, we have confirmed one man who received a suspension letter has committed suicide.

Wrongful death lawsuits related to the suicides of Leroy Burchett and Melissa Jude followed.

The complaint alleged that Eric Kahn's alleged fraud, which led to the suspension of disability payments for hundreds of people in eastern Kentucky, played a substantial role in the deaths of some.

That lawsuit was also eventually dismissed without reward.

At this point, Three weeks had passed since Eric C.

Kahn's former clients' benefits were suspended.

The mess grew more more dire every day.

Disregard the unscrupulous, the lazy, the fully abled who were fully content to live a life of poverty on the government dole without wanting anything more.

That is unavoidable, and sad, and offensive and harmful to everyone who works hard for a living and pays taxes.

Everyone agrees.

But in this case, there were legitimately disabled persons cut off from their lifeline because of a few bad apples, as they say.

Fortunately, common sense prevailed.

Although the acting commissioner has decided to reinstate benefits, these beneficiaries must provide sufficient evidence to establish they meet the strict statutory definition of disability dating back to the original decision on their application for Social Security disability benefits.

On June 4th, 2015, Thanks to outside pressure from the public and politicians like Eastern Kentucky's U.S.

Representative Hal Rogers, the Social Security Administration restored the suspended benefits for the Khan clients while their cases were reviewed.

The recipients were granted the opportunity to contest the decision before any further action was taken.

But the uphill battle was just getting started and would continue for years.

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A well-known disability attorney in eastern Kentucky will be on the other side of the law later this afternoon.

The charges stem from a disability scheme that involved Khan, a psychologist named Alfred Atkins, and a social security judge named David Daughtry.

According to the indictment, the Social Security Administration handed out more than $600 million to Khan's Khan's clients during a nine-year timeframe.

Federal investigators are also accusing Khan of trying to threaten a witness as well as destroying evidence once he realized that federal investigators were looking into his practice.

Ten years after Jennifer Griffith and Sarah Carver blew the whistle, five years after Damian Palleta's front-page Wall Street Journal article, two and a half years after the U.S.

Senate's investigation, and one year after the Social Security Administration suspended disability benefits for a thousand people, on April 5th, 2016, a federal grand jury indicted Eric C.

Kahn, Judge David Daugherty, and Dr.

Bradley Atkins on 18 counts, including conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, destruction of documents, obstruction of justice, and more.

The 40-page indictment accused the defendants of designing an intricate scheme.

using their expertise and positions of authority to fraudulently induce payment of nearly $600 million in federal disability and health care benefits.

Former Chief ALJ Charlie Andres was charged separately with conspiracy to retaliate against an informant.

According to those informants, the indictments were a good start but limited.

Far more people than two judges, one lawyer, and one doctor helped perpetrate the scheme.

Some of those managers who didn't act when alerted to the scheme were allowed to retire with their full benefits, Sarah Carver told the Lexington Herald leader.

Others were actually promoted to higher positions.

My main concern is whether the SSA will finally acknowledge the fraud and hold accountable the managers who had knowledge of it for years.

Both women say they're happy Khan and the two others were arrested this week, but they say it could have happened much sooner if officials would have listened to their complaints a decade ago.

They say the big problem is each Social Security Administration office sets monthly goals to get as many disability cases through the system as possible.

They say many employees can get monetary or production bonuses or even promotions when they meet or exceed their quota.

Eric C.

Khan was released from custody a week later after posting a $1.25 million bond.

At the hearing, prosecutors argued that Khan was a flight risk.

He had left the country over 140 times in the past 10 years.

He spoke three languages.

Former employees testified that he had sent money overseas.

In fact, in the past, Eric Khan had told at least six different people that he would flee the country if he were ever charged with a crime.

And yet, a federal judge approved Khan's bail on the basis that he was an honorably discharged veteran with no criminal record who had lifelong ties and an aging mother in Kentucky.

Surely, Eric C.

Khan wouldn't flee his beloved hometown.

But the judge made him surrender his passport and wear an ankle monitor just in case.

The judge said he is granting Khan's release because Khan is signaling, quote, he intends to face the charges and not to flee them.

While Khan waited at home for his trial, on June 13, 2016, 66-year-old former Chief ALJ Charlie Paul Andres pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to retaliate against an informant.

Andres was ultimately sentenced to six months in prison and a $20,000 fine.

For those given a lot, a lot is expected, he said at the hearing.

I failed.

I failed my profession.

For that, I am profoundly sorry.

The victims of the scheme received more good news a few months later.

In October 2016, U.S.

District Judge Amul Thapar ruled that Eric Khan's former clients had been treated unfairly by the government when their benefits were suspended a year earlier.

Quote, If the government threw Amy Jo Hicks in jail because she was a member of Al-Qaeda, she would get a chance to challenge that factual assertion before a neutral arbiter.

If the government fired her because she lied on an employment form, She would get a chance to challenge that factual assertion before a neutral arbiter.

And if the government took away her stove because she was late on her installment payments, she would get a chance to challenge that factual assertion before a neutral arbiter.

The burden of proof in this case rests on the Social Security Administration, Thothpart wrote.

They should have proven that the prior medical information was fraudulent before they suspended the payments.

You got a federal judge telling the SSA that the hearings are conducting, they're treating these people worse than al-Qaeda terrorists.

Hopefully, the SSA will take this federal judge ruling seriously and just cease the persecution of these 800 local people.

Fapar's ruling technically only applied to the seven former clients of Khan involved in that specific case, but it set a precedent that could potentially help hundreds of others reestablish their disability benefits.

And it may help some reapply who had already been redetermined and denied.

I'm just excited that

there's a little glimmer of hope that at least seven people had

a positive

outcome.

Attorney Ned Pillersdorf told the Lexington Herald leader that nearly 1,500 redetermination hearings for Kahn's clients had taken place and that only about half of them were being reapproved.

The redetermination hearings were straight out of the McCarthy era, Pillersdorf told the newspaper, where you are confronted with evidence that you are not allowed to see and not allowed to question.

Speaking of which, Eric C.

Kahn was no longer questioning the evidence against him.

In a surprise twist, the lawyer cut a deal and pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government money and one count of payment of gratuities on March 24th, 2017.

Khan admitted that he did all that shit.

He paid the doctors to sign the fake forms and paid Judge Doherty to approve them.

He admitted that he received almost $6 million in fees from the fraudulent claims.

But, Khan noted, it wasn't his idea.

It was Doherty.

Khan said Doherty's daughter had gotten into trouble and she needed money, so the judge pitched the scheme.

Doherty approved every case anyway, Khan's lawyers pointed out.

Eric didn't need to pay him off.

As part of his plea, Eric C.

Kahn agreed to reimburse Social Security $46 million and serve a prison sentence of 12 years.

His formal sentencing was scheduled for July 2017.

Again, Eric Kahn was allowed to wait for that date from the comfort of his own home.

Eric Kahn also agreed to testify against Dr.

Bradley Atkins, the only one of the three who chose chose to go to trial.

Former Administrative Law Judge David B.

Doherty pleaded guilty to two counts of illegal gratuities in May 2017.

The 81-year-old was ordered to pay $93.8 million in restitution to the federal government and serve four years in prison.

Doherty died in prison on October 19, 2019, a few months before he was scheduled for early release.

Bradley Atkins would have traded places with him in a heartbeat.

The 46-year-old former psychologist continued to proclaim his innocence, blaming his involvement on youthful ignorance and forgery rather than calculated fraud.

And Atkins planned to prove it in court, except he didn't.

Bradley Atkins was convicted of conspiracy, mail fraud, and false statements.

After an outburst, Atkins was removed from the court and placed in a holding cell, where he was later found hanging.

Atkins survived.

He was later sentenced to pay restitution of $93 million and served 25 years in prison.

That's a steep sentence for a side character, but Atkins couldn't blame Eric Kahn for his fate.

Eric Kahn never testified against him because Eric C.

Kahn was missing.

Surprise.

First off,

we are looking for Eric Christopher Kahn.

We need him to face justice for defrauding the U.S.

taxpayer of more than $550 million

in a social security fraud scheme.

He has now fled justice.

After having pled guilty on March 24th for his role in that scheme, he was scheduled to be sentenced next month.

But instead, on Friday evening, he removed his GPS monitoring device or his ankle bracelet,

which was found

along I-75 in Lexington.

We issued a press release initially,

and today I'm announcing a $20,000 reward

for his location that leads to his arrest so that he can return to Kentucky and face justice.

On June 2nd, 2017, after meeting with prosecutors in Lexington to go over his planned testimony against Dr.

Atkins, Eric C.

Kahn cut the electronic monitor from his ankle and disappeared.

Authorities found the tracking device in a backpack on Interstate 75.

Other than that, no leads were made public.

A month later, Eric Kahn was sentenced in absentia to the plea bargained 12 years.

But that was before he decided to flee.

Additional charges related to the escape were waiting for Eric C.

Kahn in a new indictment unsealed in October 2017.

That new indictment also included a familiar name.

In a federal indictment unsealed today, Curtis Lee Wyatt of Pike County is accused of conspiring with Kahn Kahn on his escape for about a year starting in June 2016.

48-year-old Curtis Lee Wyatt from Raccoon, Kentucky, had helped his boss Eric Kahn develop a plan to flee the country just days after he was first indicted.

They set up a dummy corporation in Montana called Disability Services LLC.

They opened a bank account to transfer money, and they paid $3,500 cash for a 2002 Dodge Ram, which Curtis retrieved.

One of Curtis Lee Wyatt's duties was to scout the Mexican border.

He tested the pedestrian crossings in Nogales, Arizona, and Columbus, New Mexico to see if they checked identification on the way out.

Wyatt shared his findings and they circled a date.

The truck was waiting for Eric Kahn in Lexington.

Inside, there was a signal-suppressing Faraday bag for the ankle monitor.

After Curtis Lee Wyatt was charged in October 2017, He received an email from an old friend.

Life is too short to go through this, especially when you don't have to do so, Eric Khan wrote.

I do not understand what is holding you, other than perhaps some hope for a miracle.

Not too many of them going around.

Here, you will have a respectable life and live well.

Further, the women here are hot.

Curtis Lee Wyatt ignored Khan's advice to flee and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to escape from custody.

He was sentenced to seven months in prison and a $400 fine.

Where was Eric Khan trying to convince his friend to go?

Authorities weren't quite sure yet, but they were getting close.

A dozen different law enforcement agencies were on the case.

They digitally probed and physically searched every tie to Eric Khan.

They traced his steps to a convenience store in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, where he was caught on surveillance sporting a freshly shaved head.

From there, he was spotted even closer to the border at a Walmart in Deming, New Mexico.

where he was recorded purchasing a bicycle.

When federal authorities descended on the area, they remained a step behind.

All they found was the abandoned Dodge truck, and that's where the trail ended.

However, it was safe to assume that Eric Kahn made it across the border and eventually used a fake passport to fly to a country without an extradition agreement.

Actually, we don't have to assume that at all.

That's what Eric said in a series of emails he had recently sent to the Lexington Herald leader and other news agencies.

Kahn outlined his grievances and reasons for running.

The preferential prison sentences that the judges David Doherty and Charlie Andres received rubbed him the wrong way.

Khan complained that the 12 years coming his way more than doubled the judges' combined sentences.

The country's political class receives preferential treatment, while the politically powerless are treated with extreme disdain, he wrote.

Please clap.

In the emails, Khan also claimed he had no plan on returning to the United States, but that he would consider turning himself in if certain conditions were met.

He also asked the media to please stop using his unflattering mugshot.

I detest that picture, he wrote.

It has become vapid.

Those initial emails weren't traceable, but Khan eventually slipped.

Federal investigators pinpointed his location, La Ceiba, Honduras.

Within days, FBI agents and a local SWAT team were arresting him at a pizza hut.

He had recently told a friend through email that he was craving Italian food.

Today, I'm pleased to announce that Mr.

Khan is in custody.

On Saturday, December 2nd, with the assistance of the FBI's legal attaché in San Salvador and La Agencia Técnica de Investigación Criminal, or ATIC, Mr.

Kahn was arrested without incident at a pizza hut in La Saeba, Honduras.

As promised, Mr.

Kahn will now be held accountable for his actions, the people he deceived, and the lives he shattered, including all the victims of his greed in eastern Kentucky.

No one was more relieved that the manhunt was over than Eric C.

himself.

He looked physically tired, and he had noticeably lost weight.

Honestly, it was horrible.

I never got one true minute of relaxation, he wrote in an incredible 42-page letter to the Herald leader that detailed his life on the run.

I'll let you decide how much of the rest of this story is true.

Eric Kahn said he never thought about fleeing until his buddy Wyatt asked if he was afraid of being raped in prison.

Well, now that you mention it, yes.

Eric said he he began to shake all over, like, quote, a man on the verge of frostbite.

What does one do when he is forced to reconcile his respect for what he knows is right and his fear of being sexually assaulted or sexually abused?

Eric asked.

I allowed fear to control my decisions.

So, Eric says, he fled.

He crossed the border to Mexico on foot and then hitched a ride to Juarez.

There, a taxi driver connected him to someone who could hook him up with a fake Mexican passport.

Eric claimed he tried to book a flight but bailed after that fake passport raised some eyebrows at the airport.

Instead, Eric says he approached a man in a giant cowboy hat who just so happened to work for the bus company.

With his help, Eric made it to the Mexican-Guatemalan border, where Eric offered a man $5 to borrow a puppy to avoid appearing suspicious when he walked past the patrol.

The little guy was not exactly Ren 1010, but I thought almost everyone loves puppies, Khan said.

And he was right.

Kh said the border guard stopped him to say that he had a dog at home that looked just like him.

This is Curly, Khan told the guard, naming the dog on the spot.

Well, that guard just so happened to be a big fan of the three stooges, he told Eric.

Curly must have been his favorite, because he let Eric the fugitive and Curly the dog walk right on through.

In Guatemala City, Eric said he bought the dog lunch and set it loose.

And then he boarded a bus to an unknown destination but didn't care, because that's where he met Jessica.

Something Something restless, eager, and potentially explosive about her, Khan wrote.

I was a moth to the flame.

Before long, Eric and Jessica's snuggle fest was interrupted when Honduran soldiers boarded the bus and started checking papers.

Eric, always quick on his feet, pretended to be drunk and slurred that he was getting married to the beautiful lady sitting next to him.

Sure, go ahead.

My papers are in my backpack, he said.

Check for yourself.

Eric said that one of the Honduran soldiers turned to his partner and said, Gringos are crazy, before moving on.

In Honduras, Khan said he hopped from city to city, admittedly naive about the widespread political unrest and high murder rates taking place at that current time.

Eventually, Khan arrived safely to the Caribbean coastal city of La Cieba.

He said Jessica from the bus came to visit, but was eventually compelled to return home by her, quote, irrationally possessive ex-boyfriend.

The soap opera ended on December 2nd, 2017.

Eric Khan was sitting at a table and Pizza Hut enjoying his personal pan pepperoni and Azteca soup.

Hotel California playing overhead.

Eric says a female police officer sat down in the booth across from him.

Never looking up, Khan said to the woman, I believe you are here for me.

She replied, I am.

She also said it was an honor to meet a member of Mensa.

I swear he really wrote this.

And with that movie script ending, Eric Khan could accept that it was over.

In February 2018, the Kentucky Supreme Court permanently barred Eric C.

Kahn from practicing law.

In June, he pleaded guilty to three additional charges, tacking on an additional 15 years to his prison sentence, 27 in total.

He was also ordered to pay more than $72 million in restitution.

At his sentencing hearing in September 2018, Eric Kahn apologized to his family, clients, and the whole country.

I've made a lot of mistakes for a man who wanted to do a lot of good in my life, he told the judge.

An apology can't right the wrongs that I've done, but I think it's a pretty good place to start.

Eric C.

Kahn remains in custody at FCI Fort Dix in New Jersey.

He is scheduled for release in November 2039.

I do sincerely believe his apology.

It doesn't make, you know, right

what he did by any means, but I do believe that he was sincere in his apology.

It is way more than what we have received from anybody within the Social Security Administration.

To begin paying his restitution, Eric Kahn's property, including the 19-foot-tall Lincoln Memorial, was auctioned off.

A local businessman purchased it for an undisclosed price and donated it to the Middle Creek National Battlefield Civil War site near Prestonburg, Kentucky.

As for the life-size mannequin mannequins that sit on the Eric C.

Kahn Law Complex billboards, at least one of them was obtained by country music star Tyler Childers, who grew up in eastern Kentucky.

In 2020, Childers contacted Ned Pillersdorf, the attorney representing Khan's clients, who tracked it down.

The mannequin was given to Tyler Childers in exchange for a donation to the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund of Kentucky.

which to this day continues to organize volunteers to represent Eric Kahn's former clients clients in hearings and rehearings to redetermine their benefit eligibilities.

Some former clients of the attorney who ran the largest U.S.

Social Security scam have a chance to get lost disability payments back.

An agreement with the federal government would allow about 500 former clients of disgraced Kentucky attorney Eric Kahn to request a new hearing.

The hearing could allow them to have their benefits reinstated.

Most recently, in January 2023, An agreement was reached with the Social Security Administration that would allow 500 former clients to request a new hearing to have their benefits reinstated.

They had lost their benefits seven years ago now, which then auto-defaulted because they did not challenge the decision in court.

Pillersdorf had successfully argued that their cases were preserved under a class action lawsuit.

We'll see.

These are people who've been without seven years, and if you win your new hearing, By the time they have these hearings, I think they're starting next year, we're talking about six, seven, eight years of back pay.

That's probably on average about $200,000 each.

So these people have a lot to gain to undo an unfairness that was done to them.

I mean these people without benefits, many of them are homeless.

A lot of them have tried to, many have tried to commit suicide, many have committed suicide.

And it's really to pull these people out of a really dark hole they've been in for the last seven years.

The SSA is no longer treating them as criminals and is now acknowledging what they really are, which is victims.

Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with original music by Trevor Howard, aka Deformer, aka Curly.

For more information about Swindled, you can visit swindledpodcast.com, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok at SwindledPodcast.

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And I'm filled with existential dreads.

Fuck Dan Marino.

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