[WASHINGTONTIMES] The psychologist who helped pull off the biggest Social Security fraud in U.S. history was sentenced Friday to 25 years in prison.Alfred Bradley Adkins was part of the fraud ring orchestrated by Eric C. Conn, one of the country’s most prominent disability lawyers, and David B. Daugherty, a Social Security judge who rubber-stamped at least 1,700 bogus applications for benefits.
All told, the scam would have cost the government at least $600 million in fraudulent lifetime benefits, according to the government’s conservative estimate. Some $93 million were already paid out before the scam was stopped, the government said.
Judge Danny C. Reeves, sitting in Kentucky, delivered the 25-year sentence in court Friday, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported. That’s a stiffer sentence than either Conn, who got 12 years, or Daugherty, who got four years, and it’s also more than the penalty the government had been seeking.
But the judge said it was appropriate given the massive size of the fraud and the four charges Adkins was convicted of: mail fraud, wire fraud, making false claims and conspiracy.