KY Lawyer Convicted Of Social Security Fraud Caught In Honduras

Authorities in Honduras have arrested a Kentucky lawyer who fled the U.S. after being convicted in a Social Security fraud case, according to multiple reports. Eric Conn reportedly fled the country in June after cutting off his ankle monitor while under house arrest.

Conn left his ankle monitor in a backpack along I-75 in Lexington and was later traced to New Mexico, where a truck he was using was found near the border, according to an NPR report. Conn is being sent back to the U.S. on Tuesday, NPR reports.

Conn has one of the nation's largest practices representing people seeking federal disability benefits but in March he pleaded guilty to stealing from the government and bribing a Social Security judge, The Lexington Herald Leader reported. The fraud was categorized by officials as one of the biggest in the history of the program. According to the Lexington Herald Leader report, the fraud would have obligated the government to pay over half a billion in benefits.

The judge Conn reportedly bribed in the case, David B. Daugherty, pleaded guilty in the case and was sentenced to four years in prison, according to NPR.

Conn was scheduled to be sentenced in July but fled the country on June 2. He was sentenced in absentia to 12 years in prison.

Photo: This undated file image provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows a wanted poster for Eric Christopher Conn, a lawyer who pleaded guilty in a $500 million Social Security fraud case. Conn disappeared on June 2, 2017, before his sentencing and the FBI said Friday, July 14, 2017, that surveillance photos show Conn at a gas station and a Walmart in New Mexico. (FBI via AP, File)