FBI: Fugitive lawyer linked to Social Security fraud spotted

Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky.

Federal agents tracking a fugitive Kentucky lawyer involved in a massive Social Security fraud case released surveillance photos Friday indicating that his escape route took him to New Mexico.

The FBI said the weeks-old photos showed Eric Conn at a gas station and a Walmart in New Mexico. The photos were revealed on the same day the flamboyant disability lawyer was supposed to be in federal court to face sentencing.

The sentencing proceeded in Lexington, Ky., without Conn. The man who once was one of the country’s top disability lawyers was given a 12-year prison term – the maximum possible.

The FBI, meanwhile, revealed more details about Conn’s escape, and the path he took to so far elude authorities.

Conn cut off his electronic monitor and fled on June 2 by using a truck registered by a co-conspirator to a dummy company in Montana, Amy Hess, the FBI’s top agent in Kentucky, said in a statement Friday.

“The FBI traced the truck to where it was ultimately abandoned for us to find in New Mexico near the border,” Hess said.

There’s no indication Conn crossed into Mexico, she said.

The FBI did not identify Conn’s alleged accomplice.

Conn had been on house arrest, but was in Lexington to meet with prosecutors to plan for his testimony in a related case.

Conn pleaded guilty in March to stealing from the federal government and bribing a judge in a more than $500 million Social Security fraud case. A $20,000 reward is being offered to information leading to his arrest.

In a recent email exchange with the Lexington Herald-Leader, a person claiming to be Conn said he fled the U.S. using a fake passport, escaping to a country that does not have an extradition agreement with the U.S.

The FBI on Friday released two photos that it said showed Conn buying food and water at a gas station in Santa Rosa, N.M., and pushing a bike at a Walmart in Deming, N.M., in early June.