WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) — The U.S. Department of Justice announced Dec. 6 that Eric Christopher Conn of Pikeville, Kentucky, was apprehended abroad after fleeing Social Security fraud charges.
From October 2004 to February 2012, Conn and others allegedly devised a scheme to defraud the government by submitting false statements to Medicaid and Medicare.
Conn fled to Honduras after pleading guilty to his involvement in the $550 million fraud scheme. On Dec. 2, he was taken into custody in La Ceiba, Honduras. Assisting in the matter were the Agencia Tecnica de Investigaciones Criminales de Honduras (ATIC), the FBI’s legal sttaché in San Salvador, U.S. Probation, the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the SSA-OIG, the Kentucky State Police, Lexington Police, Pikeville Police, University of Kentucky Police and the Luna County (New Mexico) Sheriff’s Office.
The announcement was made by acting assistant attorney general John P. Cronan of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, special agent in charge Amy S. Hess of the FBI’s Louisville field division, and special agent in charge Michael McGill of the Social Security Administration-Office of Inspector General’s (SSA-OIG) Philadelphia field division.