KY judge moves to wipe out hundreds of court actions after lawyer’s fraud
A judge has ordered court officials to purge hundreds of small-claims lawsuits that former disability attorney Eric C. Conn filed to try to get money from clients.
Pike Circuit Judge Eddy Coleman ruled this week that Conn wasn’t eligible to practice Social Security disability law during the time he was suing clients, and so wasn’t entitled to pursue small-claims judgments in court.
“Conn was a multimillionaire who would nickel-and-dime his poor clients with these meritless lawsuits against them,” Prestonsburg attorney Ned Pillersdorf said in a news release.
Pillersdorf represented former Conn clients in the case along with Lexington attorney Mark Wohlander.
Conn, who lived in Pikeville, was once one of the top Social Security disability lawyers in the U.S., with a lucrative practice representing thousands of people from Eastern Kentucky.
However, he ultimately admitted he put false evidence in clients’ claims, paid doctors and a psychologist to sign the claims with little oversight, and bribed an administrative law judge to approve them.
He is serving a 27-year prison sentence and isn’t scheduled to be released until November 2040.
Before his practice crumbled, Conn was in the habit of having a doctor evaluate clients at a cost of $400, and then filing small-claims lawsuits to recoup the payment, Pillersdorf said.
Conn filed hundreds of the complaints, Pillersdorf said.
Conn collected money from some people, but many of his former clients received no notice of the lawsuits or judgments.
Warrants and contempt citations that judges issued for people who didn’t respond, and outstanding judgments, all still on the books years later, likely hurt people’s credit scores and job opportunities, Pillersdorf said in the lawsuit seeking to purge the cases.
The one named plaintiff in the case, James K. Gillman, was serving a two-year jail sentence and feared the outstanding judgment against him would endanger his chance at parole.
Conn sued Gillman in 2004 but he only found out about the case in December, according to the lawsuit.
Conn had resigned from practicing before the Veterans’ Affairs Disability Benefits Program while under investigation, meaning it was improper for him to later handle Social Security disability cases, Gillman argued in the lawsuit.
Coleman agreed, citing a federal court ruling.
Coleman said there were still hundreds of Conn’s small-claims actions on the Pike District Court docket, and noted the actions had likely caused harm to people.
He ordered the court clerk to purge them all.
Conn was served with a copy of the lawsuit but didn’t respond, so Coleman entered a default judgment, according to the order.
The relief was long overdue for people hurt by Conn’s “shameless manipulation” of the district court, Pillersdorf said.
A puppy, border crossings, love on the run. Eric Conn’s wild account of his escape.
‘Hot’ women and a good life. Eric Conn asked former employee to join him on the run.
Psychologist in Eric Conn’s disability scheme loses an appeal. He’s in prison until 2039.
