S. Hrg. 113–503 

SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY BENEFITS: 

DID A GROUP OF JUDGES, DOCTORS, AND 

LAWYERS ABUSE PROGRAMS FOR THE 

COUNTRY’S MOST VULNERABLE? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

OCTOBER 7, 2013 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY BENEFITS: 

DID A GROUP OF JUDGES, DOCTORS, AND LAWYERS 

ABUSE PROGRAMS FOR THE COUNTRY’S MOST VULNERABLE? 
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

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85–499 PDF 2014

S. Hrg. 113–503 

SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY BENEFITS: 

DID A GROUP OF JUDGES, DOCTORS, AND 

LAWYERS ABUSE PROGRAMS FOR THE 

COUNTRY’S MOST VULNERABLE? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

OCTOBER 7, 2013 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

JEFF CHIESA, New Jersey 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Deputy Staff Director 

BETH M. GROSSMAN, Chief Counsel 

LAWRENCE B. NOVEY, Chief Counsel for Governmental Affairs 

PETER P. TYLER, Senior Professional Staff Member 

DEANNE B. MILLISON, Counsel 

KEITH B. ASHDOWN, Minority Staff Director 

CHRISTOPHER J. BARKLEY, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

ANDREW C. DOCKHAM, Minority Chief Counsel 

KATHRYN M. EDELMAN, Senior Investigator 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 

LAUREN M. CORCORAN, Hearing Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 1 

Senator Coburn ................................................................................................. 2 

Senator Levin .................................................................................................... 9 

Senator Heitkamp ............................................................................................ 30 

Senator Baldwin ............................................................................................... 32 

Senator McCaskill ............................................................................................ 34 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 91 

Senator Coburn ................................................................................................. 95 

WITNESSES 

MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2013 

Sarah A. Carver, Senior Case Technician, U.S. Social Security Administration 

(Appearing in a Personal Capacity) .................................................................... 14 

Jennifer L. Griffith, Former Master Docket Clerk, U.S. Social Security Administration (Appearing in a Personal Capacity) .............................................. 16 

Jamie L. Slone, Former Employee, The Conn Law Firm ..................................... 18 

Melinda L. Martin, Former Employee, The Conn Law ........................................ 19 

David P. Herr, D.O., West Union, Ohio ................................................................. 46 

Alfred Bradley Adkins, Ph.D., Pikeville, Kentucky .............................................. 47 

Srinivas M. Ammisetty, M.D., Stanville, Kentucky .............................................. 47 

David B. Daugherty, Former Administrative Law Judge, U.S. Social Security 

Administration (did not appear) .........................................................................

Eric C. Conn, Attorney and Owner, The Conn Law Firm .................................... 68 

Charlie P. Andrus, Administrative Law Judge, U.S. Social Security Administration (Appearing in a Personal Capacity) ....................................................... 69 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Adkins, Alfred Bradley, Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 47 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 115 

Ammisetty, Srinivas M., M.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 47 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 120 

Andrus, Charlie P.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 69 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 122 

Carver, Sarah A.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 14 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 102 

Conn, Eric C.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 68 

Griffith, Jennifer L.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 16 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 102 

Herr, David P.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 46 

Martin, Melinda L.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 19 

Slone, Jamie L.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 18 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 113 
Page

IV 

APPENDIX 

Statement from Jennifer L. Griffith ....................................................................... 123 

Prepared statement from Debra Brice, Social Security Administration ............. 124 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record: 

Ms. Bice ............................................................................................................. 139 

Mr. Cristaudo .................................................................................................... 151 

Ms. Jonas .......................................................................................................... 157 

Prepared statement for the National Organization of Social Security Claimant’s Representatives (NOSSCR) ........................................................................ 166 

Report by the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 

Staff Report entitled ‘‘How Some Legal, Medical, and Judicial Professionals 

Abused Social Security Disability Programs for the Country’s Most Vulnerable: A Case Study of the Conn Law Firm,’’ October 7, 2013 ........................... 171 

EXHIBIT LIST 

1. December 2, 1999 Email from RCALJ Cristaudo to Judge Charlie Paul 

Andrus, PSI–SSA–95–032338–39 368 

2. July 7, 2004 Memorandum from Frank Cristaudo, Regional Chief Judge, 

Region III—Philadelphia to Hearing Office Chief Judges, Hearing Office 

Directors, Region III—Philadelphia on ‘‘Fourth Quarter Performance’’ ...... 370 

3. April 18, 2007 Memorandum from Frank Cristaudo, Chief Judge to Regional Chief Judges .......................................................................................... 373 

4. October 31, 2007 Memorandum from Frank A. Cristaudo, Chief Administrative Law Judge ............................................................................................. 375 

5. May 20, 2011 Email from Patricia Jonas, Executive Director, Office of 

Appellate Operations to mccarper@msn.com, PSI–SSA–96D2–04632 ......... 378 

6. August 18, 2011 Email from Gregory Hall, Huntington ODAR Hearing 

Director to ODAR Huntington Office .............................................................. 379 

7. July 24, 2001 Email from Ronald M. Kayser to William H. Gitlow, PSI– 

SSA–95–032435 ................................................................................................ 380 

8. Social Security Administration, Office of Inspector General, Congressional 

Response Report: Huntington, West Virginia, Office of Hearings and Appeals, A–13–02–22090 ...................................................................................... 384 

9. May 17, 2012 Letter from Pamela J. Marple, Esq., attorney for Eric 

C. Conn, to the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations ....................... 394 

10. July 5, 2001 Memorandum from Charlie P. Andrus HOCALJ Huntington, 

WV to Steve Slahta, Acting RCALJ OHA Region III .................................... 445 

11. July 23, 2001 Email from Jim Comerford to #OHA R3 RO MGMT ANALYSTS, PSI–SSA–96D2–003930 ..................................................................... 447 

12. June 19, 2002 Email from Frank Cristaudo to Charlie Paul Andrus, 

PSI–SSA–96D2–003368 ................................................................................... 453 

13. November 29, 2002 Email from Charlie Paul Andrus to Frank Cristaudo, 

PSI–SSA–003696 .............................................................................................. 454 

14. Form ‘‘Request for Transfer and Waiver of Travel Expenses’’ ...................... 456 

15. August 30, 201l Email from Debra Bice to Kristen Fredricks, Joseph 

Lytle, PSI–SSA–100–004537 ........................................................................... 458 

16. June 12, 2012 Affidavit of Jamie Lynn Slone ................................................ 460 

17. June 13, 2012 Affidavit of Melinda Lynn Martin .......................................... 470 

18. DB Lists, CLF030566–810 ............................................................................... 479 

19. October 4, 2005 Email from James D. Kemper, Jr. to Charlie P. Andrus, 

Andrew J. Chwalibog, and William H. Gitlow ............................................... 722 

20. May 18, 2006 Email from William H. Gitlow to Roland M. Kayser, PSI– 

SSA–95–032792 ................................................................................................ 723 

21. July 31, 2006 Email from Charlie P. Andrus to Huntington ODAR Office, 

PSI–SSA–95–032809 ........................................................................................ 724 

22. January 25, 2007 Email from Sarah Randolph [Carver] to Gregory Hall ... 725 

23. May 9, 2007 Email from Sarah Randolph [Carver] to Gregory Hall ............ 726 

24. September 18, 2007 Signed Statement of Donna George .............................. 727 

25. August 31, 2007 Email from William H. Gitlow to William H. Gitlow, 

PSI–Gitlow-01–000 1 ........................................................................................ 728 

26. September 11, 2007 Email from Jennifer Griffith to Gregory Hall .............. 729 

27. October 24, 2007 Email from Sarah Randolph to Gregory Hall ................... 730 

28. March 29, 2010 Email from Sarah Carver to William H. Gitlow ................. 732 

29. April 29, 2011 Email from William H. Gitlow to William H. Gitlow, 

PSI–SSA–95–033229 ........................................................................................ 733 
Page

V 

30. May 2, 2011 Email from Judge Daugherty to Charlie P. Andrus, Andrew 

J. Chwalibog, and William H. Gitlow ............................................................. 734 

31. June 10, 2011 Memorandum to ODAR Staff, Huntington, West Virginia 

from Gregory Hall, Hearing Office Director ................................................... 738 

32. May 19, 2011 Email from William H. Helsper to Charlie Paul Andrus ...... 739 

33. January 23, 2002 Email from Charlie Paul Andrus to Huntington Hearing Office ALJs, PSI–SSA–95–032421 ............................................................ 740 

34. September 5, 2002 Email from David B. Daugherty to Charlie P. Andrus, 

PSI–SSA–9602–003483 .................................................................................... 741 

35. December 2, 2002 Letter from Region III Chief Judge Frank Cristaudo 

to Associate Commissioner, PSI–SSA–9602–003703 ..................................... 742 

36. Undated draft letter from Associate Commissioner A. Jacy Thurmond, 

Jr. to David Daugherty .................................................................................... 743 

37. April 24, 2003 Memorandum from Regional Chief Judge OHA—Region 

III—Philadelphia Frank A. Cristaudo to Charlie P. Andrus Hearing Office 

Chief Judge, PSI–SSA–96D2–00402l .............................................................. 745 

38. May 5, 2003 Email from Charlie P. Andrus to Frank Cristaudo, PSI– 

SSA–96D2–004050 ............................................................................................ 748 

39. May 4, 2009 Email from William H. Gitlow to Ronald Bernoski, PSI– 

SSA–95–032907 ................................................................................................ 750 

40. June 14, 2011 Email from William H. Gitlow to Barbara Powers, PSI– 

SSA–95–031480 ................................................................................................ 751 

41. CLF03l230 ......................................................................................................... 752 

42. August 6,2010 Email from Charlie P. Andrus to Eric Conn, PSI-Conn09–0050 .............................................................................................................. 758 

43. CLF06038 and CLF02216 ................................................................................ 760 

44. CLF029445–48, CLF033356, CLF033360 , CLF033371, CLF033378, 

CLF033384, CLF033386, CLF033392, CLF033399 ....................................... 762 

45. RFC Forms Version #1-#15 .............................................................................. 774 

46. DRAFT: Report of the Division of Quality’s Review of Decisions issued 

by the Huntington, WV Hearing Office, PSI–SSA–96D2–044750 ................ 849 

47. CLF016923–25, CLF030282–84, CLF030289–91, CLFCLF028358–60, 

CLF030111–13, CLF025997–99, CLF028569–71, CLF028415–17, 

CLF015807–18, CLF019495–501, CLF025065–76, CLF030115–27, 

CLF030146–57, CLF030159–70, CLF024291–302, CLF025901–12, 

CLF025989–99, CLF028471–82, CLF025888–99, CLF027717–23, 

CLF027758–68, CLF028604–15 ....................................................................... 872 

48. RFC Form, Version #5 ...................................................................................... 1087 

49. CLF033403–04 .................................................................................................. 1097 

50. Huntington Team Award Submission ............................................................. 1099 

51. State of West Virginia Campaign Financial Statement (Long Form) in 

relation to the 2008 Election Year Reports Filed by Amy Daugherty ......... 1105 

52. Petty Cash Voucher CLF00118 ....................................................................... 1173 

53. Gregory Hall Awards Nomination Forms ....................................................... 1174 

54. March 18, 2009 Memorandum from Jasper J. Bede, Regional Chief Administrative Law Judge—Region III to All Region III HOCALJs ................ 1178 

55. See May 10, 2001 Memorandum from Gregory A Hall, Group Supervisor 

to Charlie Andrus, HOCALJ ............................................................................ 1180 

56. June 19, 2002 Email from Valerie Loughran to Frank Cristaudo and 

Gregory Hammel, PSI–SSA–96D2–003356–57 .............................................. 1181 

57. June 19, 2002 Email from Frank Cristaudo to Charlie Andrus, HOCALJ, 

PSI–SSA–96D2–003146–47 ............................................................................. 1184 

58. July 1, 2002 Email Chain from Frank Cristaudo to Charlie P. Andrus, 

Valerie Loughran, Howard Goldberg, and Gerri Polito, PSI–SSA–96D2– 

003391 ................................................................................................................ 1188 

59. November 8, 2002 Email from Frank Cristaudo to Charlie P. Andrus, 

Valerie Loughran, Gregory Hamel, Howard Goldberg, PSI–SSA–96D2– 

003589 ................................................................................................................ 1190 

60. November 18, 2002 Memorandum of Record from James D. Kemper, 

Jr. to Assistant Inspector General for Investigations, Attention: Mr. Paul 

Ragland .............................................................................................................. 1191 

61. April 20, 2005 Email from Valerie Loughran to Frank Cristaudo, PSI– 

SSA–96D2–004394 ............................................................................................ 1194 

62. May 23, 2005 Email from Frank Cristaudo to Charlie Paul Andrus, 

Valerie Loughran, Gregory Hamel, Howard Goldberg, PSI–SSA–96D2– 

004408 ................................................................................................................ 1196 
Page

VI 

63. June 16, 2005 Email from Charlie P. Andrus to Frank Cristaudo and 

Howard Goldberg, PSI–SSA–96D2–004416 .................................................... 1198 

64. April 30, 2007 Email from James Kemper Jr. to Robert Habermann, 

PSI–SSA–95–032853 ........................................................................................ 1200 

65. October 14, 2008 Email from Sarah Randolph to Charlie Andrus, 

HOCALJ ............................................................................................................ 1203 

66. Invoices from Shred-All, PSJ-Shred—All—Docs-01–0001 ............................. 1204 

67. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, Social Security Administration v. 

Algernon W. Tinsley, Statement of Charges and Specifications, PSI–SSA– 

96D2–018249 ..................................................................................................... 1221 

68. Undated Affidavit, Judge Charlie P. Andrus RE: EEO Complaint of Judge 

Algernon Tinsley ............................................................................................... 1227 

69. Memorandum Opinion and Order, Algern on W. Tinsley v. Michael J. 

Astrue, Civil Action No. 3:09–0600, United States District Court For 

the Southern District of West Virginia, Huntington Division ...................... 1240 

70. May 6, 2011 Email from Charlie P. Andrus to Jasper J. Bede forwarding 

answers to WSJ questions ............................................................................... 1254 

71. Incoming Call Log, CLF00085 ......................................................................... 1259 

72. D.B. Daugherty Answers to Wall Street Journal sent to Mark Lassiter, 

National Press Office ........................................................................................ 1260 

73. May 19, 2011 Email from Michael J. Astrue to Mark Lassiter, PSI– 

SSA–96D3–000952 ............................................................................................ 1262 

74. September 24, 2007 Document Recovered from Judge Daugherty’s Computer at the Social Security Administration .................................................. 1265 

75. Receipt, CLF01022 ............................................................................................ 1266 

76. May 26, 2011 Email from Judge Charlie P. Andrus, HOCALJ to Judge 

Debra Bice, PSI–SSA–10–027678 .................................................................... 1268 

77. May 23, 2011 Email between Debra Bice to Marsha Stroup, PSI–SSA– 

100–030524 ........................................................................................................ 1269 

78. June 8, 2011 Email from Judge Debra Bice to Judge Jasper Bede, and 

John Allen, PSI–SSA–100–030480 .................................................................. 1271 

79. June 9, 2011 Emails between Judge Debra Bice and Judge Charlie P. 

Andrus, PSY–SSA–100–030471 ....................................................................... 1272 

80. June 9, 2011 Email from Judge Charlie P. Andrus to Huntington ODAR, 

PSI–SSA–95–031007 ........................................................................................ 1274 

81. August 28, 2011 Email from Michael Devlin to Judge Debra Bice, PSI– 

SSA–10–029427 ................................................................................................ 1275 

82. January 15, 2013 Statement of Judge Charlie P. Andrus ............................ 1276 

83. November 19, 2010 Email from Charlie P. Andrus to Patricia Taylor 

and Gregory Hall .............................................................................................. 1300 

84. July 6, 2011 Emails between Vickie Moreland and Bridgette Campbell ..... 1301 

85. July 9, 2011 Shipment Confirmation .............................................................. 1302 

86. July 28, 2011 Letter to Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner, Social Security 

Administration from Senator Tom A. Coburn, M.D. and Senator Carl 

Levin .................................................................................................................. 1304 

87. August 1, 2011 Letter to Senator Carl Levin from Michael J. Astrue, 

Commissioner Social Security Administration ............................................... 1305 

88. August 2, 2011 Email RE: Ltr from Perm. Sub. Invest ................................. 1307 

89. CD Produced by Judge Darell Mullins: The Eric C. Conn Law Complex 

Presents ‘‘We the People,’’ Songs by Darrel Mullins and Dan Huff ............. 1308 

90. Commonwealth of Kentucky vs. Eric C. Conn, Commonwealth of Kentucky Court of Justice, Case No. 13–CB–00231, September 9, 2013 ........... 1310 

A. Exhibits Related to Case A 

1. June 1, 2010 Decision, Administrative Law Judge David B. Daugherty ..... 1315 

2. August 27, 2009 Decision, Administrative Law Judge Andrew J. 

Chwalibog .......................................................................................................... 1320 

3. August 31, 2009 Appointment of Representative and Fee Agreement ........ 1329 

4. Disability Report—Adult-Form SSA–3368 ..................................................... 1331 

5. October 5, 2009 Request for Medical Advice .................................................. 1340 

6. March 5, 2010 Physical Residual Functional Capacity ................................. 1341 

7. November 10, 2009 Notice of Disapproved Claim .......................................... 1349 

8. Simplified Vocational Rationale ...................................................................... 1353 

9. March 5, 2010 Notice of Reconsideration ....................................................... 1354 

10. March 24, 2010 Request for Hearing by Administrative Law Judge ........... 1357 

11. DB OTR List (May) CLF 030713 ..................................................................... 1359 

12. April 27, 2010 Social Security Disability Medical Assessment, Frederic 

T. Huffnagle, M.D. ............................................................................................ 1360 
Page

VII 

Exhibits for Appendix I will remain sealed by the Senate Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs Committee. 

(1) 

SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY BENEFITS: 

DID A GROUP OF JUDGES, DOCTORS, 

AND LAWYERS ABUSE PROGRAMS FOR THE 

COUNTRY’S MOST VULNERABLE? 

MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2013 

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 3 p.m., in room SD– 

342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Carper, Levin, McCaskill, Baldwin, Heitkamp, 

Coburn, and McCain. 

Also present: Senator Manchin. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CARPER 

Chairman CARPER. The hearing will come to order. We welcome 

all of our guests here today. 

I want to start at the outset by thanking Dr. Coburn, Senator 

Levin, Senator McCain, their staffs, and our witnesses for the heroic work, I think, that you have done—to bring us here to this 

day. 

I am going to make a very brief opening statement. I am going 

to yield to Dr. Coburn for a much longer statement. Then I will 

have some more things to say. 

I will say this: All of us know we are facing huge budget deficits in this country. They are down, cut in half, from about $1.4 trillion 

to about $700 billion. That is still way too much, and it is part of 

the reason why we have this government shutdown that is in effect 

even today. But there are a number of things that we need to continue to do to make sure that we bring down that deficit and we 

run this country in a fiscally responsible way. 

I think we have a moral imperative to do what is right, the right 

thing to do, particularly looking out for the least of these in our society. I think we also have a fiscal imperative to make sure we are 

meeting that moral imperative in a fiscally, financially responsible 

way. And Dr. Coburn and I have spent years working together, 

along with Senator Levin, Senator McCain, and others on this 

Committee, trying to make sure that we are rooting out waste, 

whether it is fraud or just ineffective spending, wherever we find 

it, and to reduce it. And in this case, I think Dr. Coburn and his 

staff and others have done terrific work. I am grateful for that, and 
2 

I am going to yield to him at this time. And when he finishes, I 

will have some more to say. And I think maybe Senator Levin 

would like to make a short opening statement, too. Thanks. 

Dr. Coburn, congratulations and thank you for all your good 

work. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN 

Senator COBURN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is the second 

hearing in a series looking at deficiencies in the Social Security Administration handling of disability claims. Our first hearing, held 

in September 2012, looked broadly at the weaknesses and decisions 

made by the agency’s administrative law judges (ALJs), and their 

own internal study showed that 22 percent of those were decided 

inappropriately. Our look at those showed 25 percent. 

This afternoon, we are going to focus on the findings of a 2-year 

investigation into the Huntington, West Virginia, Social Security 

Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR). Specifically 

the investigative report we are releasing details how one lawyer, 

one judge, and a group of doctors financially benefited by working 

together to manufacture bogus, fraudulent medical evidence to 

award disability benefits to over 1,800 people. 

I would like to thank my Chairman, Tom Carper, and the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), Senators Levin and McCain, for their support 

and their hard work on this investigation. Without their help, this 

hearing would not be possible. 

Before we get into the findings of our investigation, I want to extend a thank you to the four courageous ladies sitting in front of 

us at this time. Republics only survive when courage is demonstrated on the basis of character, sound morals, integrity, and 

honor. And each four of them have demonstrated that to this Committee, their investigators, and I think the public will see that as 

their stories are told. 

These women—Jamie Slone, Melinda Martin, Sarah Carver, and 

Jennifer Griffith—saw the disability programs being exploited and 

were brave enough to bring their story to the Committee. I commend all of you and hope others will take up your example to 

speak up when you see wrongdoing, whether it is in Social Security 

or any other agency of the Federal Government. 

Congress needs to know where the problems are in our government so that they can be addressed and hopefully changed for the 

better. Again, thank you to each of you for traveling to Washington 

to tell your story. I very much look forward to hearing from you. 

The issues we are going to discuss today, like many of our country’s current problems, began and begin with Congress. Only here 

could we take something as important as the Social Security disability programs and let politics hurt those most in need. By this 

I mean that for a long time Congress has acted as if getting people 

onto the program is more important than doing oversight of the 

program. In practical terms, this has meant pushing the Social Security Administration (SSA), to eliminate its hearings backlog with 

little interest on how that is performed. 

This point was driven home clearly the last time the Senate considered a nominee to head the agency. During the 2007 confirma-
3 

tion process for former Commissioner Michael Astrue, many Senators used the chance to criticize how long it took for claimants to 

get a hearing. Mr. Astrue in response pledged to work to reduce 

the backlog and wait times for hearings, and we saw the results. 

Shortly after he was confirmed, the agency rolled out an aggressive plan to reduce the backlog. At bottom, the backlog plan asked 

agency employees to do more, faster. While the agency hired more 

administrative law judges to carry the load, it also pressured the 

ALJs to decide more cases by spending less time on each case. As 

part of the plan, SSA pushed all ALJs to decide between 500 and 

700 cases per year, many of which contained thousands of pages of 

medical evidence. The agency also went so far as to set daily goals 

for ALJs. In 2011 and 2012, each ALJ was to decide 2.37 cases per 

day. To speed the process further, the judges were encouraged to 

skip hearings altogether and just write opinions if they felt it was 

warranted. 

The agency made clear that moving a high volume of cases was 

the top priority. On the surface, the plan appeared to work. 

Over the next few years, the agency saw an incredible improvement in the time it took to issue a decision by an ALJ. Wait times 

for ALJ hearings dropped from 514 days to as few as 353 days by 

2012. The number of ALJ decisions likewise increased from roughly 

575,000 in 2008 to more than 820,000 in 2012, a 43-percent increase. By February 2011, Commissioner Astrue proudly announced that under his watch the agency had ‘‘reversed the trend 

of declining service and increasing backlog in our disability workloads.’’ 

With so much emphasis on the quantity, the agency’s attention 

to oversight of the ALJ decisions diminished. The report the Committee is releasing today details just how much the quality of the 

decisions suffered in one particular office—SSA’s Huntington, West 

Virginia, office. The report describes how one lawyer, several 

judges, and a group of doctors took advantage of the situation and 

exploited the program for their own personal benefit. Together they 

moved hundreds of claimants onto the disability rolls based on 

manufactured medical evidence and boilerplate decisions. As a result, they saw millions of dollars flow their way, promotions at 

work, and had bad behavior ignored. 

The ALJ at the center of this mess was Judge David B. 

Daugherty. Over the course of his tenure with the agency, he became one of the most prolific ALJs for the agency in the country. 

During 2010, the last full year he decided cases, Judge Daugherty 

was the third highest producing ALJ out of more than 1,500 at 

SSA. In that year alone, he decided 1,375 cases and awarded benefits in 1,371, with an approval rate of 99.7. He denied only four 

cases. He was outgunned only by Frederick McGrath of Atlanta, 

Georgia, who decided 3,200 cases, and Charles Bridges of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who approved 1,855 cases. 

Many of Judge Daugherty’s peers, however, questioned how it 

was possible to decide so many cases when most others struggled 

to finish a third of that. When asked by a fellow ALJ how he was 

deciding such a high volume of cases, Judge Daugherty responded, 

‘‘You are just going to have to learn which corners to cut.’’ 
4 

To cut those corners, our investigation found that Judge 

Daugherty focused on cases from one attorney, Eric C. Conn of The 

Conn Law Firm. A self-described multimillionaire, Mr. Conn’s law 

office is located in Stanville, Kentucky. His practice focused almost 

entirely on clients seeking Social Security disability benefits. Early 

on, Mr. Conn became known for his aggressive marketing with billboards throughout Stanville and eastern Kentucky. Witnesses 

interviewed by the Committee said you could not listen to the radio 

or watch television without seeing his commercials. 

By all accounts, his marketing efforts worked. By 2010, Mr. Conn 

was the third highest paid disability attorney in the country, despite working in a town with only 500 people. In 2010, Mr. Conn 

received almost $4 million in attorneys’ fees from the agency. The 

only other attorneys receiving more from SSA were Charles Binder 

of the Binder & Binder firm, which received $22 million, and 

Thomas Nash of Chicago, who received $6.3 million. 

However, as our investigation uncovered, there was much more 

to the story than Mr. Conn’s advertising. Mr. Conn, Judge 

Daugherty, and several doctors carried out a sophisticated plan to 

ensure claimants would be approved for disability, relying on questionable and, in my opinion, fraudulent methods. We will turn next 

to the plan they carried out. 

For the plan to succeed, the top priority was getting Mr. Conn’s 

cases in front of Judge Daugherty. Generally, whenever a claimant 

is denied benefits and then appeals to an ALJ, the Social Security 

Administration sends the case to whichever office is closest to 

where the claimant lives. This protects claimants who might otherwise have to travel great distances, which can be difficult for someone who is disabled. 

Mr. Conn, however, discovered a way to ensure that his cases 

would always go to the Huntington office. He would require his clients to sign a waiver requesting their cases instead to go to SSA’s 

Prestonsburg, Kentucky, office, a satellite office of the Huntington 

office, which was located near the Conn law offices. The 

Prestonsburg hearing office is staffed by Huntington ALJs who 

travel there once a month, and so no matter where the claimant 

lived, their disability claim would be assigned to a Huntington ALJ 

on appeal. Directing the cases from there to Judge Daugherty, however, would take additional effort. 

In the normal course, agency rules required cases to be assigned 

to ALJs on a rotational basis with the oldest cases assigned a hearing date first. Yet at the moment a case arrived in the office, but 

before it was assigned, Judge Daugherty would at times intercept 

Mr. Conn’s cases and assign them to himself. If cases would happen to slip past and get assigned to another judge, Judge 

Daugherty would go into the computer system and move the case 

to his docket. 

Some in the SSA office began to notice what was happening and 

brought it to the attention of the office’s chief judge, Charlie 

Andrus. Despite having the issue brought to him repeatedly over 

a period of 10 years, Judge Andrus never once stopped this procedure. By approving a large volume of Mr. Conn’s cases, Judge 

Daugherty met his agency mandated monthly quota with very little 

effort. 
5 

According to documents and Committee interviews, each month 

Judge Daugherty and Mr. Conn would coordinate on a list of his 

clients to approve. The key, however, was that he would only approve Mr. Conn’s clients if he provided the judge with one additional piece of evidence that showed they were disabled. And so 

every month, Judge Daugherty would call Mr. Conn’s office to let 

him know just what kind of evidence he needed for each client. On 

the call, Judge Daugherty would start by relaying the name and 

Social Security number of each person he was ready to approve. He 

would then say whether the new piece of evidence should relate to 

a mental or physical impairment. The list would then be typed up 

and saved on computers at The Conn Law Firm. Mr. Conn’s staff 

referred to these monthly lists as ‘‘the DB list,’’ after Judge 

Daugherty’s nickname, D.B. Daugherty. 

The Committee obtained DB lists from June 2006 through July 

2010. The list contains as many as 52 claimants each month. In 

total, the DB list from that time contained 1,823 people who were 

approved for disability benefits. 

After Judge Daugherty told Mr. Conn the kind of medical evidence he needed, the next step for Mr. Conn was to ensure a doctor 

provided it. Fortunately for Mr. Conn, he had a crew of paid doctors ready to provide what he needed. To find doctors willing to go 

along with him, Mr. Conn searched the Internet for ones with 

checkered or difficult pasts. Those in his circle had histories of malpractice, medical licenses revoked, hospital privileges suspended. 

Until his death in 2010, Mr. Conn’s go to doctor for physical ailments was Dr. Frederic Huffnagle. While practicing as an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Huffnagle was the subject of multiple malpractice suits, had his medical license revoked, and hospital privileges revoked in other States. 

Since Dr. Huffnagle lived 4 hours away, Mr. Conn arranged for 

him to come to town for 2 days each month and examine his clients 

in a medical suite in his law office. Clients were scheduled for 

exams in 15-minute blocks, and the doctor would meet up to 35 clients per day. 

The medical report Dr. Huffnagle gave Mr. Conn was modest at 

best. Dr. Huffnagle, as well as the others, would provide brief reports about the visit in a form describing the claimants’ residual 

functional capacity (RFC). That is an important term that we need 

to be aware of during this hearing. 

The second form is commonly known as the ‘‘RFC’’ and is a key 

document used by all SSA judges. A residual functional capacity 

describes a claimant’s limitations in performing any job in the national economy, the agency standard in determining whether a 

claimant was entitled to benefits. 

To understand the problem with RFCs filled out by Dr. 

Huffnagle, it is important to understand what they contain. For 

each claimant, the RFC asks the doctor to determine a few basic 

things: the amount the claimant could lift or carry, the number of 

hours that the claimant could sit, stand, or walk in an 8-hour work 

day. The RFC also required the doctor to determine how often the 

claimant could perform 22 other activities by marking one of four 

answers: never, occasionally, frequently, or constantly. 
6 

Given the vast range of answers Dr. Huffnagle could provide on 

this form about the claimant, it would be nearly impossible for two 

claimants to be found with the exact same limitations. The chances 

of two RFCs being filled out the exact same way is next to impossible. Yet somehow Dr. Huffnagle found that his patients almost always had the exact same limitations. Ninety percent of the time, 

Dr. Huffnagle signed one of just 15 different variations of the form. 

For just one version he frequently signed, Dr. Huffnagle reported 

97 claimants had exactly the same limitations. 

This was no coincidence. Our investigation found that this was 

a planned step in the process for getting Mr. Conn’s clients onto 

disability. Mr. Conn had developed 15 versions of the RFC completely filled out before any doctor visit took place. He cycled 

through them, assigning one of these 15 pre-filled RFCs to people 

in the order that they came through his door. It had no connection 

to their disability. The only thing that changed was the name and 

Social Security number on the top of the page. Mr. Conn then forwarded the opinion and the RFC to Judge Daugherty. 

While agency rules require ALJs to carefully review a claimant’s 

entire file and write a comprehensive decisions, Judge Daugherty 

did otherwise. Based on the decisions we reviewed, his opinions 

would routinely cite only a single piece of evidence, namely, the reports from Mr. Conn’s doctors. As such, his opinions were much 

shorter and less detailed than those of other ALJs. Almost all of 

them included a boilerplate paragraph and concluded with the following quote: 

‘‘Having considered all the evidence, I am satisfied that the information provided by Dr. Huffnagle most accurately reflects the 

claimant’s impairments and limitations. Therefore, the claimant is 

limited to less than sedentary work at best.’’ 

This was remarkable for two reasons: One, a claimant’s case file 

can be hundreds of pages, if not thousands of pages long. For a 

judge to say the only piece of evidence worth looking at is the one 

paid for by the claimant’s lawyer is absurd. 

Second, before a claimant ever gets to the ALJ, most have already been evaluated and denied by the agency twice, professionals 

who do this all day every day and have dedicated their lives to it. 

In the opinions we reviewed, Judge Daugherty rarely strayed from 

a basic format. In fact, most of his decisions were identical to one 

another with only small portions changed. As such, he was able to 

write a lot of decisions with little effort. 

While Dr. Huffnagle passed away in 2010, the same RFC forms 

that he signed continued to be submitted by other doctors, several 

of whom we will hear from today. We reviewed 102 RFCs signed 

by Dr. Herr, and 94 percent were identical to the RFCs that Dr. 

Huffnagle signed. Of the 10 RFCs we reviewed signed by Dr. 

Ammisetty, 9 were identical to the pre-filled forms used by Dr. 

Huffnagle. 

Identical RFC forms were also used by doctors examining Mr. 

Conn’s clients for mental impairments. For these, Mr. Conn often 

sent his clients to see Dr. Brad Adkins. Dr. Adkins would meet 

with the clients, write up a short report, and submit a mental RFC. 

This RFC required Dr. Adkins to rank the claimant with regard to 

15 different abilities, such as follow work rules, behave in an emo-
7 

tionally stable manner. The form required Dr. Adkins to rank the 

ability in the following ways: unlimited, good, fair, poor, or none. 

Once again finding two identical RFCs should be next to impossible, yet we found that 74 percent of the RFCs signed by Dr. 

Adkins were one of just five different forms. These five forms came 

from Mr. Conn’s office already filled out, but Dr. Adkins told the 

Committee investigators that he routinely signed them. Only the 

names and Social Security numbers were changed. Just as before, 

Judge Daugherty would cite only these documents when awarding 

benefits to Mr. Conn’s clients. 

It would be useful now to turn back to the issue of why these 

individuals did what they did. The short answer is that each of 

them—Mr. Conn, his doctors, Judge Daugherty, and Judge 

Andrus—benefited in different ways, both personally and financially. Mr. Conn made millions for claimants on the DB list. From 

2006 to 2010, Mr. Conn was paid over $4.5 million by the Social 

Security Administration in attorney fees. In 2010 alone, he earned 

over $3.9 million for all of his cases, including those from Judge 

Daugherty. 

Mr. Conn’s doctors also benefited handsomely. Mr. Conn paid his doctors up to $650 per claimant, helping them earn considerable 

fees, and by testimony that we have, sometimes spending less than 

10 to 15 minutes with them. For the 4 years of records that the 

Committee obtained, Mr. Conn paid Dr. Huffnagle almost $1 million, Dr. Herr was paid more than $600,000, Dr. Adkins was paid 

nearly $200,000. 

And Judge Daugherty took full advantage of his freedom. The 

running joke in the Huntington office was if you wanted to find 

Judge Daugherty, do not bother looking in his office. When fellow 

ALJs complained about Judge Daugherty taking advantage of time 

and attendance rules, the agency looked the other way. His big 

numbers effectively let Judge Daugherty do whatever he wanted. 

Finally, as the Huntington office rose to be the second most productive office in the agency, office management and ALJs received 

salary increases. Some of the office management even received bonuses for their productivity. Judge Andrus received national recognition when he was tapped by the agency to mentor other ALJs 

across the country and then promoted to assistant regional chief 

administrative law judge. 

While lawyers and doctors were getting rich by exploiting a broken program, the real victims were the claimants and the American taxpayer. The claimants suffer because we do not do any favors when we wrongly award benefits, and we will certainly hurt 

those who justifiably are receiving those benefits when the trust 

fund runs out of money probably in less than 18 months. 

At the same time, the American taxpayers suffer. For just the 

claimants listed on the DB list, Judge Daugherty approved an estimated $546 million in lifetime benefits. For all his cases, Judge 

Daugherty awarded $2.5 billion in the last 6 years. 

Probably the most troubling issue our investigation uncovered, 

however, is what happened when the details of this plan started to 

become public. In May 2011, a reporter named Damian Paletta 

with the Wall Street Journal ran a story about the relationship of 

Mr. Conn and Judge Daugherty. Along with Judge Andrus, Mr. 
8 

Conn and Judge Daugherty responded by carrying out what appears to be an elaborate attempt to cover up the truth from the Social Security Administration and the American people. 

After the story ran, Judge Daugherty and Mr. Conn made the 

unusual decision to speak with each other only using prepaid disposable cell phones. We were told by Mr. Conn’s former employees 

that this was to keep the conversations from being recorded. 

For his part, Judge Andrus conspired with Mr. Conn to retaliate 

against Ms. Carver, one of our witnesses today, who he believed 

was behind the Wall Street Journal article. Their plan was to follow and film Ms. Carver on days she was working from home in 

an attempt to get her fired for violating agency telecommuting 

rules. Despite several attempts, they were never able to find Ms. 

Carver doing anything wrong. Once the agency discovered what 

was going on, they placed Judge Andrus on administrative leave. 

The final troubling finding was the systematic destruction of documents once allegations began to surface publicly. Both Mr. Conn 

and the agency took the unusual steps to destroy documents potentially related to a known open congressional investigation. After 

the Wall Street Journal article, the Committee found that Mr. 

Conn had hired a local shredding company to destroy over 3 million 

pages of documents. His former employees informed us he shredded 

all hard copies of the DB lists along with a warehouse full of files. 

He had another employee destroy all the office computers along 

with the hard drives in a massive bonfire. Ms. Slone also noted 

that a number of e-mails from Judge Daugherty to Mr. Conn mysteriously went missing. The agency for its part could not find any 

of Judge Daugherty’s e-mails either. 

While Mr. Conn was destroying documents, the agency approved 

the purchase of personal shredders for the offices of Huntington’s 

management. Keep in mind this occurred in the middle of a congressional investigation when the agency was legally obligated to 

preserve all relevant documents. Senator Levin and I immediately 

asked the local SSA Office of Inspector General (OIG) agent to 

seize the shredders, which they did. 

Why Huntington management allowed an office under investigation to buy personal shredders is a question that needs to be answered. When my office asked the office’s top judge why he approved the purchase, he said he had not even considered that it 

might be a problem. This is a judge. It is unacceptable. 

We cannot lose sight of why we are here today. The bipartisan 

2-year investigation shows that Congress needs to update laws and 

regulations governing Social Security’s disability programs. Judge 

Daugherty, Mr. Conn, and his doctors clearly stretched and, in my 

mind, broke all agency rules. But attorneys using doctors to provide bogus medical evidence is not just isolated to Mr. Conn or 

even Huntington, West Virginia. Just last year, I released a report 

that found the same thing happening in three other offices. 

And much like I began, I will end by noting that Congress continues to be the problem. With the clock ticking on the agency’s 

trust fund, some in Congress refuse to acknowledge that the disability programs are broken and in dire need of significant oversight. People who are truly disabled will pay the price of our 

dithering. 
9 

One simple reform that would make a big difference is including 

professionals from the Social Security Administration to represent 

the government and ultimately the American taxpayer in decisions 

made by ALJs. This reform would bring a needed balance to both 

hearings and decisions at the ALJ level of appeal which is especially true now that most claimants have representation. 

As we learned in our previous report, some claimant attorneys 

withhold evidence from the ALJ showing that the claimant’s condition has improved. A government representative would make sure 

no such information is overlooked. 

While the ALJ is tasked with also representing the interests of 

the government, he is clearly outnumbered. Then add agency management breathing down the neck of ALJs to meet monthly quotas 

for deciding cases. A representative for the government would bring 

needed balance to ALJs’ decisionmaking and ensure the ALJ considered all the medical evidence in the claimant’s file. 

This reform has long been a recommendation of the Social Security Advisory Board and is fully supported by the Association of Administrative Law Judges (AALJ). This is one area where Congress 

can find common ground on needed reforms. 

We also need to make sure that these ALJs have the tools they 

need to render the proper decisions. The agency’s recent forbidding 

of the purchase of symptom validity testing, like the Minnesota 

Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), is ridiculous. These 

tests determine if an individual is malingering or lying about their 

symptoms. The SSA OIG recently determined the agency stands 

alone in not using the MMPI with everyone else finding it a useful 

tool—other Federal agencies, private disability insurers, academics, 

and the medical community at large. 

I hope today’s findings encourage others to take a hard look at 

this program and support much needed reforms for this program 

that last year supported almost 11 million Americans with $137 

billion of American taxpayer money. 

I would close with one remark. If you work somewhere in the 

Federal Government today, I would hope that if you are seeing 

fraud, if you are seeing manipulation, if you are seeing things that 

are not right, that you will follow the lead of these four courageous 

women in bringing it to the attention of Senator Levin’s Permanent 

Subcommittee on Investigations or my office. 

With that, Senator Carper, I thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you so much. 

I am going to go out of order and ask Senator Levin, who chairs 

the Subcommittee under which this investigation has taken place, 

to make a statement. I will make a short statement after that, and 

then we will turn to our witnesses. Senator Levin. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you very much, Senator Carper. And first 

let me commend Senator Coburn for his leadership and for his and 

his staff’s hard work in uncovering the abuses that are the subject 

of today’s hearing. 

I also want to thank Senator Carper for supporting this investigative effort and for having his Subcommittee hold this hearing 

today. 
10 

This investigation began at the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair, when Senator Coburn was our ranking 

Republican Member, and then Senator McCain became our ranking 

Republican Member, and that is now his position on our Subcommittee. 

Our Subcommittee rules provide that the ranking minority Members may initiate an inquiry. It is an unusual rule. It is a very important rule, and it almost guarantees that this Subcommittee will 

be a bipartisan Subcommittee, and that is true of a number of our 

other rules as well. But it is our tradition now as well—it is not 

just the rules—that we participate and work together in a bipartisan way and that our staffs work together on investigations. And 

that is what happened here. 

For the first year of the minority-led 2-year investigation, our 

Subcommittee staffs worked together on document requests, conducted joint interviews, and dug into the facts. In the second year 

of the investigation, when Senator Coburn became ranking minority member of the full Committee, which he is now, the joint report 

being released today was drafted, and so this report is a prime example of a bipartisan congressional oversight effort, as the entire 

investigation has been, and we are now very happy and proud that 

Senator McCain is our ranking Republican, and we are working together on many ongoing investigations. 

Senator Coburn has already described what this investigation 

has uncovered: a case study of conduct that is abusive, fraudulent, 

longstanding, and intolerable. The case study shows how one lawyer living in Kentucky, Eric Conn, engaged in a raft of improper 

practices to obtain disability benefits for thousands of claimants, 

taking advantage of Federal disability programs that were designed to help the most vulnerable among us. 

His improper practices included: manufacturing boilerplate medical forms, misusing waivers to submit claims that should have 

gone elsewhere, employing suspect doctors willing to conduct cursory medical exams and sign virtually any form put in front of 

them, and colluding with administrative law judges on procedures 

that broke the rules and improperly favored his clients. 

Evidence of inappropriate collusion between Mr. Conn and one of 

the administrative law judges deciding the disability cases is particularly striking. Administrative Law Judge David Daugherty 

used a range of techniques to quickly award benefits in large numbers of the Conn cases. They included his improperly assigning the 

Conn cases to himself, secretly informing Mr. Conn of what cases 

he would decide and what documentation should be submitted, accepting boilerplate medical forms, relying on conclusory medical 

opinions to reverse prior benefit denials, skipping hearings, churning out short, poor-quality decisions. 

In addition, the chief administrative law judge in the regional office, Charlie Andrus, failed to act on complaints that too many of 

the Conn cases were going to Administrative Law Judge Daugherty 

and allowed Conn cases to receive favorable scheduling compared 

to other cases. After a negative media report on Mr. Conn tarnished the reputation of his office, and only after that report, Chief 

Administrative Law Judge Andrus did something else. He teamed 
11 

up with Mr. Conn to discredit the Social Security employee that 

they believed had blown the whistle. 

In addition to improper practices, the evidence exposes the inept, 

almost non-existent oversight by Social Security officials that allowed the abuses to continue for years. Repeatedly, lower-level Social Security employees and administrative law judges warned senior personnel about the improper case assignments, Mr. Conn’s outside influence over the office, and the mishandling of his cases by 

Administrative Law Judge Daugherty. But nothing was done to 

stop it. Decisive action was taken only after the abusive practices 

were exposed in the media, in the Wall Street Journal article that 

has been mentioned by Dr. Coburn. 

The report being released today documents how the individuals 

involved in the abuses profited from them. Mr. Conn was paid millions of dollars in attorneys’ fees, becoming, as Dr. Coburn said, in 

2010 the third highest paid disability lawyer at the Social Security 

Administration with fees totaling almost $4 million. The doctors 

who provided the medical opinions justifying benefit awards were 

also well paid, and since 2006, just five of them split $2 million in 

fees paid by Mr. Conn. Judge Daugherty never explained the origins of multiple cash deposits to his family bank accounts totaling 

$96,000. 

So where are we today? Administrative Law Judge Daugherty 

was placed on leave by the Social Security Administration in 2011, 

then retired, and is no longer deciding disability cases. Last month, 

Judge Andrus was also placed on administrative leave and is undergoing a review to determine whether he should lose his job. 

Eric Conn is still going strong, representing thousands of disability claimants and reaping millions of dollars in attorney fees. 

He has even opened a new office in Beverly Hills. There has been 

no accountability yet for his actions. Maybe this investigation and 

this hearing and our report will begin that process. 

This investigation did not reach a conclusion about whether the 

benefits awarded to all Mr. Conn’s claimants were wrong. There 

are too many claimants to generalize. Nor is the report intended 

to denigrate the dedicated and honest professionals that keep our 

disability programs going despite limited resources and back-breaking caseloads. Remember that this investigation was launched because some of the Social Security administration’s hard-working 

employees blew the whistle on the misconduct that they observed. 

Those Federal employees will testify today, as will two former 

members of Mr. Conn’s office who also helped blow the whistle. 

These are courageous witnesses. Our first panel is an extraordinary panel. Our Nation is in your debt. 

The point of this hearing is not to attack our disability programs 

which play a critical role in the lives of many Americans, but to 

spotlight the abusive conduct of a group of legal, medical, and judicial professionals exploiting these programs. Also, the purpose is to 

press the need for greater oversight in the agencies and by this 

Congress. You can have greater efficiency, and we must always 

have great efficiency. We cannot tolerate fraud. We also recommend a number of measures to prevent similar abuses in the future. 
12 

Again, I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for pitching in the 

way you have, and also to Senator Coburn and his staff again for 

spearheading this investigation. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator Levin, my thanks to both you and to 

Dr. Coburn for those introductory statements. They were much 

longer than usual. You usually do not hear a Chairman of the 

Committee or Subcommittee or the Ranking Member give a statement of that length. This is an extraordinary investigation that has 

taken several years to do, painstaking, a huge amount of effort, 

and I am grateful to those who have led that charge. 

I said earlier that as we try to grapple with our Nation’s fiscal 

woes, I believe there are essentially three things that we need to 

do: 

One, we need to look at our entitlement programs and ask what 

steps we need to take in order to save money in those entitlement 

programs, in order to save those programs for our children and for 

our grandchildren. And how do we do so in a way that is sensitive 

to the least of those in our society, that we do not savage old people 

or poor people or deserving people? That is No. 1. 

No. 2, I believe we need tax reform, tax reform that generates 

at least some revenues for deficit reduction. 

And the third thing that we need to do, we almost need a culture 

change in this government to go from a culture of spendthrift to a 

culture of thrift, and an approach in which we look at everything 

that we do across the government and say, How do we get a better 

result for less money or for the same amount of money? And just 

as we need a culture of thrift, we also need a culture that says 

there is zero tolerance for fraud, there is zero tolerance for dishonesty, there is zero tolerance for wasting taxpayers’ money in order 

to benefit a relative handful. 

Entitlement spending in this country amounts to over half of 

what we spend. Social Security is a big part of that, and most of 

the people who receive Social Security, almost everybody, at least 

for the regular Social Security retirement benefits, deserve that, 

and they have worked and they have earned them. We want to 

make sure that the monies that are spent in this Social Security 

disability program—Dr. Coburn just said that we are going to run 

out of money in about a year and a half. How do we make sure 

that we stop wasting money and we actually direct money to the 

places where it is most needed? 

We had originally hoped to have four panels here today before 

us. The fourth panel is not here. As we all know, the government 

is in a shutdown. We had hoped to hear from the Social Security 

Administration, some of the top folks. They have asked to be excused and to have a chance to come back later this month. As soon 

as the government is back open for business, we expect to schedule 

a second hearing to invite the Social Security Administration to 

come in and tell us what we are doing nationally throughout the 

program and throughout the country in order to address these 

kinds of problems that have been uncovered. And we look forward 

to that hearing. 

We are not going away on this issue. This is a problem. It is a 

big problem. I would like to say I am a native West Virginian, and 

what I heard here today does not make me particularly proud of 
13 

some of the things that have happened in my native State. But 

whatever State that we are from, this kind of thing, if true, cannot 

be tolerated, and we have to use our dead level best efforts to make 

sure that it stops. The old saying that Harry Truman used to say, 

‘‘The buck stops here? ’’ Well, in the case of these witnesses, the 

buck stopped with all of you. 

A number of us on this panel pray fairly regularly. Among the 

things we pray for is wisdom to do the right thing, and we pray 

for the strength and courage to be able to do what we know is the 

right thing. And what you all have done is not an easy thing to do, 

but it is the right thing to do. And from whatever source you drew 

your courage and your strength, hopefully you will be an example 

for the rest of us, and to enable us and those who might be following this proceeding today. 

We want to thank you for being here. Citizens and Federal employees who bring forward evidence and indication of potential violations of the law are one of the most important ways in which 

Federal agencies, our Inspectors General, and Congress can address waste, fraud, and abuse. Without each of you, this hearing 

would not have been possible. So thank you for putting such a high 

value on public interest and our Nation’s interest and enabling us 

to examine these issues. 

I want to briefly introduce each of you. We will administer an 

oath of office and invite you to go ahead with your statements. 

Senator McCain, let me just yield to you as the Ranking Member 

of the Subcommittee, if you would like to make a short statement. 

Let me just stop right now. I should have asked you if you would 

like to make a brief statement. Go right ahead, please. 

Senator MCCAIN. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am looking forward to hearing from the witnesses. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you so much. That was brief. 

We are not always that brief here. 

Our first witness is Sarah Carver, senior case technician at the 

U.S. Social Security Administration. She works at the Huntington, 

West Virginia, Office of Adjudication and Review. She is here before our Committee to describe her experiences and disclosures 

about the operations of the Huntington office. Ms. Carver appears 

today in a personal capacity and is not representing the views of 

the Social Security Administration. 

Ms. Carver, thank you for joining us. 

Our next witness is Jennifer L. Griffith. She is former master 

docket clerk of the U.S. Social Security Administration, where she 

worked at the Huntington, West Virginia, office. She is also here 

before our Committee to describe her experiences and disclosures 

about the operations of that office. Ms. Griffith appears today in a 

personal capacity and is not representing the views of the Social 

Security Administration. 

Ms. Griffith, welcome. Thank you for joining us. 

Next is Jamie Slone. Ms. Slone is a resident of Pikeville, Kentucky. She appears today to share her observations and experiences 

as an employee of the Eric C. Conn Law Firm from 2006 to, I believe, 2012. And we want to thank you again for appearing before 

our panel today. Thank you so much. 
14 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Carver appears in the Appendix on page 102. 

And, finally, Melinda L. Martin, a former employee at The Conn 

Law Firm. Ms. Martin was an employee at the Eric C. Conn Law 

Firm, and I am not sure for how long, but I am sure you will cover 

that in your testimony. We are grateful to you for making time to 

come all the way to testify before us today. 

The next thing before you testify, though, is I am going to ask 

each of you, if you will, to stand, and I am going to ask you to 

stand and raise your right hand, please. Do you swear that the testimony you will give before the Committee will be the truth, the 

whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God? 

Ms. CARVER. I do. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. I do. 

Ms. SLONE. I do. 

Ms. MARTIN. I do. 

Chairman CARPER. Please be seated. Thank you. 

Ms. Carver, if you would like to proceed, your entire testimony 

will be made part of the record, and you are welcome to summarize 

if you wish. Please proceed. Thank you. 

TESTIMONY OF SARAH A. CARVER,1 SENIOR CASE TECHNICIAN, U.S. SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION (APPEARING 

IN A PERSONAL CAPACITY) 

Ms. CARVER. Chairman Carper, Senator Coburn, Members of the 

Committee, good afternoon. My name is Sarah Carver. In September 2001, I joined the Social Security Administration Office of 

Disability and Review, beginning a 12-year career at the agency. 

Over the course of my employment with the Administration, I 

have held the position of a senior case technician (SCT). In 2006, 

in addition to my duties as an SCT, I was elected to the position 

of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) 

3610 Union Steward for the Huntington, West Virginia, ODAR. 

Prior to my employment with ODAR, I was a paralegal in the private sector for 13 years, 8 of which I primarily focused on representation of claimants seeking Social Security disability benefits. I am 

a graduate of Marshall University with a degree in legal studies. 

From 2001 to 2006 I routinely received performance awards for 

the quality and production of my work in the Huntington ODAR 

office. However, in 2006 those awards came to an abrupt stop when 

Greg Hall became the hearing office director (HOD). Coincidentally, 

I had been voicing my concerns about what I perceived as the improper processing of Social Security claims in the Huntington office. Not only did I report my concerns to Mr. Hall, I also reported 

them to other members of the Huntington management throughout 

the years. These members consist of Arthur Weathersby, Kathie 

Goforth, Stacy Clarkson, Jerry Meade, John Patterson, Kelly Rowland, and Chief ALJ Charlie Paul Andrus. I am still currently employed as an SCT at the Huntington ODAR office despite many retaliatory actions against me by several members of management. 

I reported to management on numerous occasions what I perceived as inappropriate actions involving Huntington ODAR management, ALJ Daugherty, and Attorney Representative Eric C. 

Conn. One such example is, in May 2007 I sent an e-mail to Greg 
15 

Hall requesting justification on the hearing request dates of ALJ 

Daugherty’s fully favorable dispositions. I discussed the serious evidence which would substantiate the overt favoritism of Mr. Conn’s 

claimants and management’s continuous sweeping things under the 

rug with regards to Daugherty and Conn. 

In that e-mail I directly warned my managers, and I quote, ‘‘the 

Eric Conn situation is going to bite this office in the butt one day.’’ 

I further requested management to open their eyes to the 

Daugherty and Conn issues and change the way Conn’s cases were 

handled before it became an outside issue. 

Instead of any corrective action being taken, the situation only 

escalated. I continued reporting to management for several years 

thereafter before I took my concerns out of the office. 

As a result of my multiple disclosures, I have suffered tremendously. Management has been allowed to harass, intimidate, oppress, stalk, discipline, ostracize, monitor, and make my life as miserable as possible for the last 7 years. 

Knowing that a private investigator was hired to follow me has 

been very traumatizing. I still fear for my safety and the safety of 

my family. Also knowing that employees have been terminated for 

their association with me has left me with such a burdensome feeling. Perhaps I should mention at this point that the agency has 

asked me to inform you that I am here testifying in my personal, 

not official, capacity, and that the agency does not sanction my testimony. 

Every employee in the Huntington, West Virginia, ODAR, including management, is considered a public servant and is held to a 

higher standard of conduct. Management officials and judges are 

no exception. 

Where is the accountability in this agency? Why does the agency 

promote and reward management for this activity? Agency production goals benchmarks are important; however, they should not diminish the importance of the quality of work we perform for the 

American people. Changes need to be made in the agency to not 

only allow for timely processing of claims without sacrificing quality but also as important, a system needs to be put in place and 

monitored by an outside source, to assure that agency leaders and 

claimant representatives are held accountable for failing to following the laws, regulations, and agency policies. 

I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you and would be 

happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Ms. Carver, thank you so much. Ms. Griffith. 
16 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Griffith appears in the Appendix on page 102. 

TESTIMONY OF JENNIFER L. GRIFFITH,1 FORMER MASTER 

DOCKET CLERK AT THE U.S. SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION (APPEARING IN A PERSONAL CAPACITY) 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Chairman Carper, Senator Coburn, Members of 

the Committee, good afternoon. My name is Jennifer Griffith. I am 

a wife, mother of two, and student, as well as a former employee 

of the Huntington, West Virginia, Office of Disability Adjudication 

and Review. I am both humbled and honored to appear before you 

today and appreciate the opportunity to describe my experience 

while employed there. 

October has always been a special month for me. It was this day 

in 1997 that my son was born. It was 12 years ago in the month 

of October that I began my career with ODAR. 

Chairman CARPER. So today is your son’s 16th birthday. Is that 

right? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Yes, it is. 

Chairman CARPER. Give him our best. Thank you. Tell him we 

said thank you for sharing his mom on his birthday. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Thank you. 

During my employment, I was a master docket clerk or case intake technician. Beginning in late 2005 or early 2006, on too many 

occasions to count, my group supervisor, Kathie Goforth, began to 

call me into her office and issue verbal reprimands based on cases 

being docketed improperly, incompletely, or not docketed timely. I 

was unable to answer her questions and had no idea what was 

causing the docketing issues. 

In an attempt to determine what was occurring, I began to run 

various reports on a daily basis and keep track of cases I docketed 

each day. I determined, in fact, the docketing issues were occurring 

because ALJ David B. Daugherty was assigning cases to himself at 

the master docket level before I was ever aware that the case had 

been transmitted to Huntington ODAR. 

CPMS, the agency’s computerized docketing system, provided no 

safeguards at that time to display who had made the improper assignments. I immediately brought this to the attention of Ms. 

Goforth, Hearing Office Director Gregory Hall, and Hearing Office 

Chief Administrative Law Judge Charlie Paul Andrus, thinking 

that my discovery would explain and alleviate the issues that appeared to be mistakes on my part. Instead it was the beginning of 

the end of my career. 

I began to question how ALJ Daugherty was accessing files that 

were not even making it to the daily master docket reports. If the 

files had not been through the docketing process and assigned to 

an ALJ, how was he aware that they were even in the office? It 

is simple. He had prior knowledge. 

ALJ Daugherty did not simply take cases from the master docket 

without proper docketing. He assigned and self-scheduled extensive 

quantities of Mr. Conn’s cases and awarded all of them in favorable 

sham hearings. 

In 2007, other area attorneys complained that Conn was receiving preferential treatment from ALJ Daugherty in scheduling hearings. I forwarded those individuals to speak with Ms. Goforth and 
17 

1See page 123 for edits requested by witness. 

Mr. Hall. Soon after, ALJ Daugherty stopped holding hearings for 

Mr. Conn’s claimants, and for an extended period, all of his cases 

were decided favorably, on the record, without hearings, 100 percent approval. 

Ms. Goforth and Mr. Hall instead increased their efforts to stop 

my reporting. I then decided to make each notification in writing 

and to include my union representative. I felt I was doing the right 

thing. I simply wanted the retaliation to stop and to be able to do 

my job without constant threat of reprimand. 

Instead, as my reporting of ALJ Daugherty’s misappropriation of 

Eric Conn cases increased, the investigations and retaliation by 

Huntington ODAR management increased. At one point my supervisor would time every action I took during the day, including how 

long I spent in the bathroom. 

In October 2007, after enduring multiple investigations and 

verbal and written reprimands, Ms. Goforth told me in an annual 

progress review that her goal by the end of the year was to make 

sure that I was no longer employed there and that there was nothing I could do about it. 

After years of attempting to get Huntington ODAR management 

to correct the consistent misappropriation of cases by ALJ 

Daugherty for Eric Conn, it was clear to me that things were never 

going to change. The constant retaliation had severely affected my 

health and my family. My physician advised me to leave my employment with the Huntington ODAR before it killed me, and I left. 

I filed 2 complaints with the Office of the Inspector General. One 

was a verbal anonymous complaint made to the OIGs hotline in 

2009. They did not contact me until April 2011, apparently because 

of a rumored Wall Street Journal investigation. The OIG called me 

regarding my complaint, and I cooperated fully. The 2nd complaint 

was in 2011, using the OIG’s website.1

In addition to my cooperation with the OIG, I have had the great 

fortune to cooperate with this investigation and speak with Committee staff, as well as to participate in the article written by 

Damian Paletta for the Wall Street Journal. 

I also filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel regarding my forced resignation from ODAR, and after appealing that 

claim to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), I settled it, 

and as requested by the agency, I have agreed not to seek employment with the Social Security Administration for 5 years. 

In October 2011, Sarah and I found attorneys to sue Mr. Conn 

and ALJ Daugherty on behalf of the United States, and we are continuing to pursue that case in hopes that through it we will be able 

to obtain compensation from them for the American taxpayers. 

Each time I spoke with someone, I was asked what I thought 

could be done to prevent this type of situation from occurring and 

what could be done to fix it. There are not nearly enough safeguards built in to catch the type of fraud that occurred here. As 

long as financial incentives to produce large numbers of disability 

decisions exist, there are going to be managers willing to subvert 

the system to meet those goals and receive compensation. In my ex-
18 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Slone appears in the Appendix on page 113. 

perience, the primary concern of the management I worked for was 

quantity, with little to no regard for quality. 

My family has not been the same since my employment with 

Huntington ODAR, and financially we will never have the same 

amount of security that we had at that time. We have suffered loss 

and will probably continue to do so. But I can look at my children 

with a clear conscience and know that whatever happens from this, 

whether any meaningful action has taken place, I did everything 

possible to make sure that the American public knew about it. 

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. 

Chairman CARPER. Ms. Griffith, thank you very much for that 

statement and, again, for joining us today, and for this journey of 

the last several years. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Ms. Slone, welcome, and you are recognized 

to make your statement. Thank you. 

TESTIMONY OF JAMIE L. SLONE,1 FORMER EMPLOYEE AT THE 

CONN LAW FIRM 

Ms. SLONE. My name is Jamie Slone. I am 36 years old, and I 

live in Pikeville, Kentucky. I am married and have four children. 

I worked for the Eric C. Conn Law Firm from September 2006 to 

March 16, 2012. 

One of my responsibilities at the firm was to field calls from Administrative Law Judge David B. Daugherty. Each month, Judge 

Daugherty called and gave the following information for 30 to 50 

Social Security disability claimants represented by Eric Conn: first 

name, last name, the claimant’s Social Security number, and either 

‘‘mental’’ or ‘‘physical.’’ 

I created a list of these claimants, which was known throughout 

the office as the monthly ‘‘DB list.’’ Once the list was created, another employee called each claimant on the DB list to schedule an 

exam with a doctor. During my tenure at the firm, Jessica Newman was primarily responsible for scheduling claimants. Depending on whether Judge Daugherty indicated ‘‘mental’’ or ‘‘physical’’ 

for the claimant, Ms. Newman scheduled the claimant to see a certain doctor to provide an opinion on the claimant’s alleged disability. 

When the medical opinions were completed, Judge Daugherty 

sent a barcode to the firm to attach to the reports, which were used 

to upload the reports into the SSA electronic file system. After 6 

to 8 weeks, Judge Daugherty issued a decision approving the claimant for disability benefits ‘‘on-the-record’’ without holding a hearing. 

If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer. Thank 

you. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, Ms. Slone. 

And, finally, Ms. Martin, please proceed. Welcome. Would you 

make sure your mic is on? Thank you. 
19 

TESTIMONY OF MELINDA L. MARTIN, FORMER EMPLOYEE AT 

THE CONN LAW FIRM 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. My name is Melinda Hicks, formerly 

Melinda Martin. I was married in June 2012. I worked at The Eric 

Conn Law Firm from January 2006 until February 2012. My responsibilities at the firm ranged from receptionist to several different supervising positions to assisting in management of the office. 

During my time at the firm, I did witness several inappropriate 

acts between Eric Conn and some of the administrative law judges 

from the Huntington, West Virginia, hearing office. I have previously submitted an affidavit which outlines the relationship between Mr. Conn and some of those judges that I saw during my 

time working at his office. 

If you have any questions, I am ready to answer those. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Ms. Martin, thank you. 

This is not a trial. This is a Committee hearing. And this is an 

opportunity for us to try to get to the truth. I think it was Thomas 

Jefferson who said that if the American people know the truth, 

they will not make a mistake. And so what we are trying to do 

today is to garner as much of the truth as we can. 

I do not know who would like to do this, but whoever—our staff 

come and go, our Senators come and go during a hearing like this 

because there are other things that they need to be doing at the 

same time. But if one of you or a couple of you could just take a 

minute or two and or maybe explain what was going on. Just in 

your own words, what was going on here? If someone, one of you 

feel comfortable in doing that, please do. 

Ms. CARVER. It is in my opinion that it was a mass collusion between a judge and an attorney. It was something that was very noticeable from within days of my employment, and it just increased. 

And it was done in such openness, and it was not something that 

was going on behind the scenes. I mean, we had office statistics, 

and as Jennifer mentioned, as those statistics became available to 

us in a system to where we were able to view these reports, it became more apparent because you could see the mass numbers of 

favorable decisions going out. This was something that really came 

to light when this electronic folder came out, because you could just 

see the massive amount of numbers. 

And the other thing that kind of astonished me, even after this 

investigation started, management was still pulling—and, again, 

this is in my personal opinion. Management was still pulling these 

cases out of hearing request dates and was still allowing—and then 

at one point before—and it happened also on several occasions— 

once Judge Daugherty helped them meet their monthly goals, because we had monthly disposition goals, they would bank these decisions. I mean, these were decisions of people who were waiting 

for them to come in the mail, and they would bank these for their 

own numerical purpose and hold them before sending them out the 

next month. And they were all Eric Conn cases. I mean, there 

would be 50 sitting, all favorable, on-the-record Eric Conn decisions. Management would allow him to put them in AWPC, which 

basically means it is with the judge for writing. However, they had 
20 

been written 2 weeks ago, and all favorable, just sitting there for 

the next reporting month. 

So, in my view, management was just a part of this as the individuals that were actually, you know—— 

Chairman CARPER. All right. That was a great overview. Thank 

you. 

Any idea how many people worked at the Huntington office, the 

Social Security office in Huntington? Are we talking about dozens 

of people? Scores of people? 

Ms. CARVER. Oh, at one time I believe we had about 60 employees. 

Chairman CARPER. In that office, maybe other satellite offices, 

and maybe in the law office of Mr. Conn, other people had to know 

something was going on. 

Ms. CARVER. Absolutely. 

Chairman CARPER. People had to know. But the four of you have 

somehow stepped up, shown courage, and are here today. It sounds 

like some of you have been through a very difficult time. Let me 

just ask, what was it that compelled you to stand up and say this 

is wrong and somebody needs to say something and do something? 

What compelled you, Ms. Martin? We will just ask everybody that 

question. What compelled you to do this? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. I am not really sure. I actually probably 

would have been too scared to do it myself. But I had actually spoken to another attorney in the Prestonsburg area just about what 

was going on, and he actually contacted someone for me, and that 

made it a little easier for me to be able to do. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. Ms. Slone. 

Ms. SLONE. Actually, I—— 

Chairman CARPER. What you have done is not an easy thing to 

do. What was it that compelled you and gave you the courage to 

do it. 

Ms. SLONE. Melinda had initially taken the first step toward 

speaking to someone about the problems within the office. Then I 

was approached to cooperate and answer some questions and give 

my insight on things involved at the law firm. And, I mean, there 

was not any question; I just cooperated. 

Chairman CARPER. Cooperated with whom? Was it the Inspector 

General or—— 

Ms. SLONE. At first it was your staff. It was the staff here, the 

Subcommittee, and then also the OIG. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Ms. Griffith, same question, please. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. I do not really know the answer to that question. 

I left in 2007 and walked away from it, until 2009. And in 2009, 

I began to see some things in the media that were put out by Mr. 

Conn and some other things, and it just—I walked away for my 

health, but suddenly I was mad again and ready to take that next 

step to do something. And I filed a complaint with the OIG fraud 

division at that time. And just sort of nothing really happened for 

a while, and then I was contacted by Mister—or communicated 

with Mr. Paletta and then to the Committee here and worked with 

them to bring it out. I think you just have to have a certain level 
21 

of anger over what you see to get you to have the courage to come 

forward. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Same question, Ms. Carver. What compelled you to step forward? 

Ms. CARVER. I agree with Jennifer as far as the anger. We initially started reporting this together. I was the union rep, and she 

initially came to me because of the disciplinary problems that she 

was having with her supervisors. And whenever I would have oneon-one talks with our office management, it was apparent that this 

is not what they wanted to hear. And at a point where they started 

retaliating in doing things not only to her but to me, I really truly 

believe that that just triggered something inside of me that, I am 

a fighter when it comes to doing the right thing. And I just kept 

doing it to the point where I could not stop now and I am there 

to—as a union representative, to help and to set an example, and 

that is what I was trying to do. 

Chairman CARPER. Good, and I think you have. You all have. 

Ms. CARVER. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Before yielding to Dr. Coburn for his questions, I would ask unanimous consent that my entire statement be 

made part of the record. 

Dr. Coburn, please. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. 

Jennifer, I am going to go through a list of questions, if you can 

answer them fairly rapidly for me. I think you probably have the 

answers to them in your mind. 

How long did you work at the Huntington office? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. From 2001 to 2007. 

Senator COBURN. And you were a master docket clerk? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. For the latter half of my employment. I initially 

was a senior case technician. 

Senator COBURN. OK. And were cases assigned only by the master docket clerks, or were judges allowed to assign cases themselves? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. At that time the master docket clerks were the 

only ones assigning cases, unless, of course, something was brought 

to their attention by a supervisor, and then the supervisor would 

assign it. But, traditionally, it was the master docket clerk. 

Senator COBURN. And the reason that they did not want judges 

assigning cases on the master docket list? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Is to avoid judge shopping or favoritism. 

Senator COBURN. OK. And once a case was assigned to a judge, 

was it typical for that case to then be reassigned to another judge? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. It was not supposed to be assigned to another 

judge. 

Senator COBURN. Now, you have talked about some of the problems you had when Judge Daugherty was going into the computer 

system, the CPMS, and assigning himself cases, and that was some 

of your conflict that you were supposedly disciplined over—— 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Yes. 

Senator COBURN [continuing]. That really was not your fault. Is 

that the only way you can manipulate this system? Are there other 

ways that you can manipulate the system and somebody could still 

cheat the system today? 
22 

1See Exhibit No 26, which appears in the Appendix on page 729. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. There are numerous ways, or at least there was 

when I was there. Keep in mind I have been gone for a while. But 

at the time, unless something is changed significantly, the numerical goals make it a priority to sort of sort things around. For example, if you have a case in one status for too long, then that could 

be an issue. You want to make sure that you are processing things 

timely. You can simply change status out of a case and then change 

it back or move it to a different status without really ever doing 

anything to that case. 

Senator COBURN. So you meet the numbers, but you did not really do anything? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Essentially, yes. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Sarah—let us see. Let me finish with 

Jennifer again. Jennifer, if you would turn to Exhibit 261 that is 

in that big book in front of you, this is an e-mail you wrote on September 11, 2007, to Greg Hall, the hearing office director, who was 

the top manager in charge of the Huntington office at that time. 

In it, you express serious frustration. You let him know that you 

were quitting. You wrote, ‘‘I am aware that while I was out of the 

office, Judge Daugherty felt it was necessary to take away some 

more cases that were assigned to another judge and place them in 

his name.’’ 

I take it that this was not the first time that this happened? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. No. This had begun approximately a year, year 

and a half prior. 

Senator COBURN. Why did that make you so upset? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Because every time a case would disappear or a 

group of cases would disappear off the master docket list, then my 

supervisor was coming to me for explanations as to why. If I am 

not performing my job to the fullest capacity, then I will not receive 

a successful performance evaluation, and I have no chance for promotion or anything else. And it had taken me a long time to figure 

out what caused this because there was no clear way to determine 

what happened. And it had escalated to a point of almost constant 

altercations with my supervisor. 

Senator COBURN. How long do you think Judge Daugherty was 

doing this? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. By my estimation, it began after the e-folder process went into effect—— 

Senator COBURN. Which was? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. In 2005 is when we started that. 

Senator COBURN. All right. How many times do you remember 

this happening that he would reassign cases? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. I do not think I can count that. I mean, it was 

every month. He would do it—— 

Senator COBURN. Fifty, 60, or 100 times? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Yes. I mean, there would sometimes be 50 cases 

missing off of my pending list, or sometimes it might be 5—you 

docket daily, and there would be cases disappearing every day, 

sometimes every week. 

Senator COBURN. In your e-mail you also wrote, ‘‘Judge 

Daugherty’’—‘‘DBD does many things like this every month. When 
23 

I find them, I make management aware of it. Nothing is ever done 

about it.’’ 

What did you tell your managers and what was their response? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Well, at a certain point in time, after verbal notifications, it became clear to me that they were not going to do anything. So I started making written notifications and including the 

name and Social Security number of each case that he took off the 

docket that I became aware of. And that continued from mid-to late 

2005 all the way up until I left in 2007. 

Senator COBURN. And to your knowledge, was Judge Daugherty 

ever disciplined for what he did? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Not to my knowledge. 

Senator COBURN. And that is a violation of the rules inside Social 

Security. Is that correct? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. To my understanding, it is a violation of the Hearings, Appeals and Litigation Law (HALLEX). 

Senator COBURN. Were the cases always from one particular lawyer, or did he do that for all kinds of cases? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. I am not aware of him doing it for any other office 

other than Eric Conn’s office. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you. 

Ms. Carver, you noticed many of the same problems that Ms. 

Griffith saw in the Huntington, West Virginia, office. Can you describe your role in the office specifically as to what Jennifer has 

talked about? 

Ms. CARVER. Jennifer was receiving disciplinary reprimands, 

verbal and in writing, at first she was denied a union representative to even be present when they were verbally—what they said 

is counseling. But then it escalated to the verbal counseling and 

they would always put it in writing. It was a battle with management to even let me be present. So that is when I kind of got involved with not only management, but even with my outside union 

president and vice president and chief steward, and I began talking 

with management and also keeping things in writing based on 

what conversations we had. 

Senator COBURN. Right. Before we talk about Judge Daugherty’s 

decisions, I understand the office joke was that if you were looking 

for Judge Daugherty, do not look in his office. Is that true? 

Ms. CARVER. That is true. 

Senator COBURN. That was an observation not by you but by several other people in the Huntington office? 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. There were several occasions where they had 

to go next door or management would call him on his cell phone 

because there were people waiting in the hearing rooms for him, 

and he was usually at the coffee shop at the Holiday Inn across the 

street. 

Senator COBURN. And did anyone in Huntington management 

know about Judge Daugherty’s time and attendance problems? 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. Not only did other ALJs report it, I reported 

it approximately probably two or three times. 

Senator COBURN. Was anything done about it? 

Ms. CARVER. No. 

Senator COBURN. It has now been about 21⁄2 years since the problem within the Huntington Social Security office became known 
24 

publicly. Have you witnessed any retribution recently for those who 

are still trying to speak out? 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. Would you describe that, please? 

Ms. CARVER. There have been—well, I will give you a really good 

example. One of the employees who reported to the OIG that the 

private investigator was hired to have me followed, she went from 

being one of the top employees as far as production and her workup 

in the country—I mean, she was No. 1, No. 2 in workup, and often 

helped management with projects that were not even—I mean, 

they were management-type projects—to being suspended for 2 

weeks. She was also reprimanded for bringing the word ‘‘diversity’’ 

up in one of her office evaluations. Several employees that participated were also—we were now being charged with absent without 

leave (AWOL). I had a police officer call my work, and my 16-yearold daughter had been in a car accident, and I had verbally went 

and sought approval from management and received it and left the 

office. However, when I came back, when I officially put in my 

leave request, I was charged with AWOL, and that was the beginning—and it is still occurring. Despite any type of medical certification that employees are receiving from their physicians, management is giving themselves the right to decide whether or not your 

condition is serious and denying employees leave. And this is happening every day. You can speak with anybody in management in 

our office right now. That did not happen before this investigation. 

Senator COBURN. Each judge would have several support staff 

working with them, including those that would help draft decisions. 

Can you describe Judge Daugherty’s approach to writing decisions 

and the extent to which he was helped by staff? 

Ms. CARVER. When he was holding hearings for other representatives, they would write the decisions. These are paralegal writers. 

They would write the decisions, and we had one writer specifically 

who said that, ‘‘There is not enough information for me to write 

this favorable decision. There is not enough substantial evidence in 

the file.’’ And she was told by the supervisor, Ms. Goforth, that if 

she did not write the decision that she would be held insubordinate. 

Senator COBURN. All right. We have heard from many judges 

that ALJ hearings can take as long as an hour or more. When 

Judge Daugherty would hold hearings for Mr. Conn’s clients, how 

long would they take? 

Ms. CARVER. About 10 minutes, if that. 

Senator COBURN. And did he issue a decision at the time? 

Ms. CARVER. Most of the time, yes. He went in long enough to 

go on the record and no testimony was taken, you could listen to 

the court reporting as a senior case technician. We would bring 

these hearings back in and put them into our system, and you 

could listen to the recordings and he would just go on record and 

announce that his decision was favorable, and there would be no 

testimony from the vocational expert (VE), the claimant, or anybody. 

Senator COBURN. And it is true that you notified Mr. Hall that 

you were aware that Judge Daugherty was assigning himself cases 

as well? 
25 

1See Exhibit No. 82, which appears in the Appendix on page 1276. 

Ms. CARVER. On many occasions. 

Senator COBURN. And that was written as well? 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. The next questions will be asked by Senator 

Levin, and he will be followed by Senator McCain, Senator Baldwin, and Senator Heitkamp. Senator Levin. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Carver, you were targeted for speaking out. Administrative 

Law Judge Andrus and Mr. Conn used a Conn employee who was 

a former police officer to videotape you on the days that you were 

supposed to be working from home. They were trying to catch you 

going shopping or otherwise taking advantage of the rules. They 

failed. They were unable to provide any kind of proof like that, so 

instead, you were filmed going shopping on the weekend. And then 

evidence was fabricated in that videotape to make it appear as 

though you were going shopping during work hours. And then the 

videotape was turned over to your superiors. 

So far is that correct? 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. They tried to discredit you because they believed 

you had spoken to a reporter about what was going on in the office, 

and Judge Andrus has admitted as much in the signed statement 

to the Social Security Administration IG, which is Exhibit No. 82.1

Shall I call you ‘‘Ms. Martin’’ or ‘‘Ms. Hicks? ’’ I am sorry. 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Either will be fine. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. Ms. Hicks—you are married, obviously—did 

a member of the Huntington office, Sandy Nease, regularly place 

calls to you at the Conn office informing you when Ms. Carver 

would be working from home? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. She did. She actually did not call the office. 

She called my personal cell phone. 

Senator LEVIN. Were you at the office when she called? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Most of the time. 

Senator LEVIN. And why was she calling your personal cell 

phone, do you know? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Yes. She wanted me to let Eric know 

when—— 

Senator LEVIN. Eric Conn? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Yes, what days Sarah would be on her flex 

day, and she also called to give us directions to her home, her address. She told us that she had a tall privacy fence that would be 

hard to record over, and also told us the type of vehicles that she 

and her husband drove so that it would be easier for them to find 

her. 

Senator LEVIN. And this came from the Social Security office? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. And then was part of that a coded message? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Yes, a couple of messages she would say 

that her children had band practice, and I do not think that she 

had children that actually had band practice. That just meant that 
26 

instead of saying it is her flex day, she would just call and say her 

children had band practice. 

Senator LEVIN. And a flex day is when employees are working at 

home. Is that correct? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. And so that was, in your judgment, coded words 

for she is supposed to be doing work at home on a flex day. 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Right. 

Senator LEVIN. And not that the kids had band practice. 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Correct. 

Senator LEVIN. And did you then give that information to Mr. 

Conn? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. I did. 

Senator LEVIN. That is pretty stunning testimony, I have to tell 

you. You are being tracked and followed here, Ms. Carver, and we 

now have a witness from the Social Security Administration office 

there who confirms that these calls were made to Mr. Conn from 

your office so that you could be tracked. And I am just wondering, 

I think you have initiated a lawsuit I believe you have made reference to. Is that correct? 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. Against the Social Security Administration? 

Ms. CARVER. Well—— 

Senator LEVIN. What kind of lawsuit is it called? It is a special 

name, right? 

Ms. CARVER. The qui tam. 

Senator LEVIN. Yes, OK. Have you also thought about suing Mr. 

Conn for interfering with your employee-employer relationship? 

Ms. CARVER. Well, a lot of this information, obviously, I was not 

privy to until just within the last couple of days. It was quite 

shocking because in the report it stated that the agency, once they 

found out this information, that they did not use it. And they did 

use it. The acting Hearing Office Chief Administrative Law Judge 

(HOCALJ), Judge Devlin, had talked to me and had ordered an investigation with Steven Hayes, which was my supervisor at the 

time, and they brought me into the office and asked me a bunch 

of questions. It was kind of intimidating because they would not 

tell me what, when, where, or how, and at the time my union representative had requested any information that they had, documentation that they based this investigation on, and they were 

told—I was told there was not any. It was just an anonymous call. 

So I am just now kind of finding out this information. I mean, 

it is shocking. 

Senator LEVIN. Well, it is stunning and shocking information. 

Ms. CARVER. It is scary. 

Senator LEVIN. I hope it will have an impact in many ways. I 

think that both you, Ms. Carver, and Ms. Griffith indicated that 

you pointed out what was going on to your bosses there at the Social Security office. I believe you alerted the chief of staff in your 

office—is this correct?—Greg Hall as to what was going on. Is that 

correct, Ms. Griffith? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Yes, that is correct. 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. 
27 

Senator LEVIN. OK. Now, what about Chief Judge Andrus? Did 

you inform him what was going on as well? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Most of the e-mails after a certain point started 

to be copied to Mr. Andrus. On one particular occasion, Judge 

Daugherty had taken approximately 50 cases away from ALJ 

Gitlow and had them in his office preparing to write favorable offthe-record (OTR) decisions after they had already been assigned to 

Judge Gitlow. I took Ms. Goforth and Mr. Andrus into Judge 

Daugherty’s office and showed them the cases. They removed them, 

but they were then later back with Judge Daugherty and were decided favorably. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. Thank you. 

Let me ask Ms. Slone and Mrs. Hicks, the bank records of Judge 

Daugherty from 2005 to 2011 show some, so far, unexplained cash 

deposits of $96,000 in round amounts, usually starting as low as 

$1,000, going as high as $5,000 at a time. Some $26,000 was posted 

to his daughter’s account from 2007 and 2008. When asked, Judge 

Daugherty declined to provide any information for those cash payments. There is no explanation of them in his financial disclosure 

forms. 

Ms. Slone and Mrs. Hicks, do either of you know anything about 

those cash deposits? Ms. Slone. 

Ms. SLONE. No, sir, I do not know anything specifically about 

those cash deposits. I had been at the firm for quite a few years 

and working closely with Eric, and I did his schedule for him for 

hearings—— 

Senator LEVIN. That is Eric Conn, right? 

Ms. SLONE. Eric Conn, yes, sir. So I pretty much knew where 

Eric Conn was every day. There were some days—one day usually 

a month that he was unaccounted for—by myself, anyway. I had 

asked him—one day when he came back. He was gone half the day, 

and I told him that I had a theory about him, and he asked what 

that theory was. And I said, ‘‘I think when you disappear 1 day a 

month that you go and meet DB.’’ And he just looked at me and 

kind of smiled, and he said, ‘‘Well, you know what they say. Where 

there is smoke, there is fire.’’ 

Senator LEVIN. That you go and meet whom? 

Ms. SLONE. DB. Judge Daugherty. But that has been the only— 

I have never—— 

Senator LEVIN. Do you know, Ms. Hicks, anything about those 

cash deposits? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. No, not about the cash deposits. 

Senator LEVIN. My time is up. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator McCain, and then Senator Baldwin, 

Senator Heitkamp, and Senator McCaskill. 

Senator MCCAIN. Well, I want to thank the witnesses. I also 

want to thank Senator Coburn and Senator Levin on the excellent 

work they and their staff have done. Obviously this is appalling. 

It is one of these things you read about in novels or see on TV. 

What is most disturbing—and I would like to begin with the witnesses, who I want to thank profusely. Is it true there was a pattern of intimidation and inaction concerning your willingness to 

step forward? Could I just go down the line and make sure that 

that is an accurate statement? Is that true, Ms. Carver? 
28 

Ms. CARVER. Yes, it is. 

Senator MCCAIN. And could you give me a couple of the most 

egregious examples? 

Ms. CARVER. Everything from, I guess it would be, suspensions 

to a private detective—— 

Senator MCCAIN. To videotaping? 

Ms. CARVER. Being videotaped, yes. 

Senator MCCAIN. It should not happen in America, I do not 

think. 

Ms. CARVER. No. 

Senator MCCAIN. Ms. Griffith. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. I am much more fortunate than Sarah. I have not 

been followed by the private investigator in this matter. I was already gone by that time. And I was already gone by the time the 

worst of the office environment happened, I had been gone for several years. But during my time there, each reporting action was 

met with equal and opposite reaction of negative verbal reprimands. I have had files that would disappear and be reviewed. 

In the last example before I left, the supervisor had issued another union employee to go through my desk to determine if any 

mail was over a certain age. Then in my progress review, she told 

me that was her goal, to make sure that I was not going to be there 

by the close of the year, which would have been 2 month away. 

Ms. CARVER. Can I say one more thing? 

Senator MCCAIN. Sure. 

Ms. CARVER. During this investigation, we were able to obtain an 

e-mail from Greg Hall to Howard Goldberg, which—— 

Senator MCCAIN. And would you identify who they are? 

Ms. CARVER. Greg Hall is the hearing office director; Howard 

Goldberg was, I believe at the time, an employee relations person 

in the region. And the e-mail said, ‘‘Sarah we have suspended. Jennifer we are working on.’’ 

Senator MCCAIN. Ms. Slone. 

Ms. SLONE. Once the Wall Street Journal story aired or came 

out, at our office things changed. Before we went into Eric’s office, 

he actually had a security wand. 

Senator MCCAIN. Eric is Mr. Conn. 

Ms. SLONE. Eric is Mr. Conn. You would have to go through a 

security check to make sure you did not have any phones or any 

recording devices or anything like that before you would be allowed 

to enter his office. He just became a lot more strict and more aware 

of who was around him, things that he said in the presence of certain people. But there was no retaliation. I mean, we were asked 

if we had spoken to anyone or been contacted by anyone, but other 

than that, there was not anything. 

Senator MCCAIN. Ms. Hicks. 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. No, not for me personally. After the story 

came out, I did not stick around too much longer because Eric 

Conn did start to do things so crazy, like have someone call my 

phone so that he could stalk some person. So I actually did not stay 

too much longer after that. 

Senator MCCAIN. How do you know that he had someone do 

that? 
29 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Because he had actually spoken to Administrative Law Judge Andrus, and he had given my phone number to 

an employee there, Sandra Nease, and she had left several messages on my phone to let me know when the employee was going 

to be off work so that Eric could send someone to follow her. 

Senator MCCAIN. So there is no doubt you felt intimidated. 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Very much so. I did not want to be involved 

in it. It was bad enough that she had my number and left messages 

on my phone, but he actually asked me to drive to her home. He 

would get upset if you told him no to anything, so when I told him 

I did not want to do that, there were just days that he would not 

talk to you for a while and make you feel bad for not doing what 

he wanted. So I just left shortly after that. 

Senator MCCAIN. Ms. Carver and Ms. Griffith, from what you 

have seen, there is no way that Judge Daugherty could have had 

as many cases under his authority and carried out a lot of the activities that he did without the active support of Judge Andrus. 

Ms. CARVER. Correct. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Correct. 

Senator MCCAIN. And that obviously is disturbing since Judge 

Andrus was the chief judge here, right? 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. When I would report it to the hearing office director, Greg Hall, he had told me on several occasions that he had 

spoken with ALJ Andrus about it and that ALJ Andrus was going 

to address the judges. However, the activity never did stop. 

Senator MCCAIN. How is your life now, Ms. Carver? 

Ms. CARVER. In the office, it is not good right now. 

Senator MCCAIN. Are you shunned by fellow employees? 

Ms. CARVER. For several years, every supervisor that I was assigned to—I now have employees telling me things that they were 

afraid to tell me at the time. Each and every one of them were told 

to not associate with me, that I was a bad person, that if you wanted to be promoted in that office, you were to be—— 

Senator MCCAIN. And do you know who it was that was saying 

these things? 

Ms. CARVER. They were newly hired employees as they would 

be—— 

Senator MCCAIN. No, but I mean who was telling them. 

Ms. CARVER. The supervisors. 

Senator MCCAIN. And you know who they were? 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. 

Senator MCCAIN. Ms. Griffith. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. My life is drastically different. I do not have the 

medical problems that I had when I worked there that were caused 

by stress. Right now I am going back to school, and, I am very 

happy that I am not there now, because I cannot imagine if it was 

as bad for me as it was then. I was taken out of the office one time. 

I was taken out of the office by ambulance because my blood pressure had reached the level of stroke. I had been working with my 

doctor for a number of years to try and get that down, and my 

health was just going downhill because I could not control the 

stress. And I walked away from that, and I have worked for several 

years in the private sector as a paralegal, and I have not ever experienced anything like what I experienced there. 
30 

Senator MCCAIN. Well, I thank the witnesses. I thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. And all I can say is that I know I speak for all of us 

that we will try to see that no one else ever goes through what you 

have been through, and obviously there are problems here that are 

much larger than your office and you individually. But you are the 

people who have made this possible, and we thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator McCain, thank you. I made a mistake earlier when I said that Senator Baldwin was here before Senator Heitkamp, and the honor system would suggest that the next 

Senator recognized is Senator Heitkamp. Senator, welcome. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP 

Senator HEITKAMP. Senator Baldwin is always honest. An amazing woman, as all of you are amazing and really pretty remarkable 

women who are doing something incredibly difficult and who have 

been doing something incredibly difficult for a very long period of 

time, which is to stand up for the American taxpayers, which is to 

stand up for what is right. And I want to just extend my personal 

thank you, but also a thank you on behalf of the people of this 

country. 

Unfortunately, your story is so utterly remarkable because all of 

you attempted, on every step along the way, you attempted to try 

and get attention to this problem. And I have heard repeatedly 

during this that management stopped you or management began to 

use intimidation, management began to do this, management 

began to do that. 

I am obviously not as familiar as Senator Levin, Senator McCain, 

and Senator Coburn with this file. I am new on this Committee. 

But this is an opportunity, I think, for especially Ms. Carver and 

Ms. Griffith, to name all of the people within management who 

have been intimidators, who have been ignorers and in some way, 

whether illegally or legally, collaborators with a system that allowed this to continue. And so I guess I would start with you, Ms. 

Carver, to provide us a list of those names. 

Ms. CARVER. I started with Supervisor Arthur Weathersby, 

Kathie Goforth, Jerry Meade, Stacy Clarkson, Steven Hayes, currently Bobby Bentley, and I have a new supervisor that has just 

recently conducted an investigation on me, and his last name is 

Bono, and he is so relatively new that I do not even recall his first 

name at this point. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you. Ms. Griffith. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. My primary experience with it was with Ms. 

Kathie Goforth and former Hearing Office Director Greg Hall and 

Chief ALJ Charlie Andrus and to some degree, although much 

more minor, ALJ Daugherty. 

Senator HEITKAMP. It may seem odd to you that I have asked 

you to name folks, but it certainly has been our experience that 

sunshine can go a long way, and if other agencies are operating 

like this, if other events like this are occurring within the system, 

having people know that your name will be listed in Washington, 

DC, in a hearing could provide maybe some relief to folks in your 

situation who are calling out these kinds of egregious problems and 

not getting any answer. 
31 

I want to transition from what was happening internally, because obviously not only has this hearing and all of the attention 

not led to a change of atmosphere for you within that agency, it 

seems like there continues to be pushback from the agency on what 

needs to be done. But I want to just transition for a moment, because I think it was you, Ms. Griffith, who talked about filing an 

Inspector General’s complaint in 2009. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. That is correct. 

Senator HEITKAMP. And never hearing—I want to just make sure 

we have this right. You filed the complaint in 2009 and did not 

hear from the Inspector General until 2011, after the report in the 

Wall Street Journal. Is that correct? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. I believe that is correct, yes. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Did you ever followup with the IG in that, 

not hearing, or did you just say it is more of the same, I am done 

with it, my blood pressure is going down, I want to be rid of this 

problem? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Initially I made a few phone calls, but I really did 

not yield any results, and I just sort of let it go. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Do you remember who it was or do you have 

any record of who it was in the IG’s office that you contacted? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. No. The only thing I have with regards to that 

complaint was a copy of the original e-mail confirming that complaint that I had. 

Senator HEITKAMP. And you got that e-mail almost right after 

you filed the complaint in 2009? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Yes. I think it might have even been the same day 

that they knowledged receiving that. 

Senator HEITKAMP. So probably just something that was generated. One of our tasks here is not just to expose your particular 

situation but to look ahead and say if there are women like you in 

an agency who are being intimidated, who are having these problems, who are pointing out something that just seems so blatantly 

wrong and not getting listened to, how do we fix that for other 

women or other individuals within agencies? Have you thought 

about that? And I, again, direct the question to Ms. Carver and Ms. 

Griffith. Have you thought about if only this, that would have 

made a difference? 

Ms. CARVER. Well, I have often, because we currently have had 

several complaints filed from women in our office, and, unfortunately, the way our grievance procedure operates is we file our first 

appeal with our first-line supervisor, our second appeal with the 

hearing office director, and then the third appeal goes to the chief 

ALJ at the region level. They are all three denied. And management knows this because our union can only arbitrate so many 

cases a year based on money, and if your case is not selected to 

be arbitrated, then you have no other recourse. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Ms. Griffith. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Part of the problem, when you run into a problem 

within the agency, or at least in my experience, is that if you have 

a complaint about your supervisor, that is who you file the complaint with. So you do not have the ability to be anonymous, to talk 

to anybody who is not going to either turn around and tell her everything that you just said about her or him, or whoever. You do 
32 

not have that protection. You are going to complain, you are going 

to complain to two people who are responsible for supervising you 

and who can in turn discipline you for anything they like, and they 

know they can get away with it. 

Senator HEITKAMP. So if management decides you are the troublemaker, it is pretty easy to begin to retaliate and avoid dealing 

directly with the complaints, no matter how legitimate. And the 

other thing that is striking about your discussion is not only is it 

legitimate, but it was office gossip, but yet nothing got done. And, 

unfortunately—I would like to think that this does not happen in 

cases of people trying to do the right thing in other agencies, but 

I think it probably does, and it takes enormous courage to do what 

you have done. It takes enormous courage to stand up. And I just 

want to tell you, all four of you, how much I applaud what you 

have done, I know it is hard to risk a family, but you guys did it, 

and you are really great Americans. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator Heitkamp, thank you very much for 

that. 

Senator Baldwin, and then followed by Senator McCaskill. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BALDWIN 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Coburn, for holding this very revealing hearing. I also want to 

thank Subcommittee Chairman Levin and Ranking Member 

McCain for all the work that went into this investigation. It is incredibly revealing. And I look at the responsibility of this Committee and think at the very specific level of the investigation before us our responsibility is to do whatever we can to make sure 

that people who would abuse this program for their own personal 

profit or benefit are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law; and, 

further, a responsibility to recognize the importance and the courage of these witnesses who have done the right thing and stepped 

forward and been very courageous, but others who might be similarly situated to know that we have their interests in mind and 

that there will be protections for those who do the right thing and 

speak up. 

And we also as a full Committee have larger responsibilities for 

the integrity of the program that we are talking about in the Social 

Security Administration, that the right reforms and oversight need 

to be in place to prevent these sort of abuses. And I take all of 

those responsibilities very seriously. I know that my colleagues on 

this Committee do. 

I do want to state for the record that I have certainly some initial hesitance to extrapolate beyond the case at hand based on the 

investigative report before us, and I think we need to dig further 

and figure out how widespread this is. And I do have a couple of 

questions in that regard, but I just wanted to start very specifically 

with the case before us, with Ms. Slone and Ms. Martin. 

My understanding is that Judge Daugherty would contact your 

office roughly once a month to provide the names of 30 to 50 Social 

Security disability claimants that were represented by Mr. Conn. 

Is that correct? And how did that communication occur? 

Ms. SLONE. Yes, ma’am. He would usually call around the first 

of the month. Our deadline to get him all the information that he 
33 

requested was by the 15th of every month. He would place a call 

to our office. I was usually the one who spoke with Judge 

Daugherty. He would give me the names of the individuals, the 

first five numbers of their Social Security number, and whether he 

wanted a mental or physical RFC evaluation performed on the clients. Then that would be handed off to another employee that 

would schedule the appointments for the evaluations. 

Senator BALDWIN. And RFC are the residual functional capacity. 

Ms. SLONE. Yes, ma’am. 

Senator BALDWIN. OK. Did any other judges, administrative law 

judges, aside from Judge Daugherty call into the office or communicate to the office like this that you are aware of? 

Ms. SLONE. No, ma’am. 

Senator BALDWIN. OK. When Chairman Carper was asking his 

initial questions of the panel, Ms. Carver, you talked a little bit 

about how you first became aware of this and talked about a mass 

collusion. And part of what you were describing was sort of what 

became apparent when you looked at this ALJ’s docket, if that is 

the right word, and the outcomes of those cases versus others. Can 

you just sort of walk me through what stood out when you looked 

at those reports and those comparisons? 

Ms. CARVER. Depending on which report you would pull up, you 

could get the monthly dispositions of each judge, and you could see 

that Judge Daugherty would do the work of three judges as opposed to one judge. You could also look at the amount of favorable 

decisions that he had versus the amount of other judges. I mean, 

all judges pretty much vary in their allowance rate, but his decisions, on one report you could see that they would go all the way 

down, and all you would see was favorable, favorable, favorable, favorable. So not only were you able to look at the number, the 

amount he did each month, but you could look at the representative and you could also look at the decisions. 

Senator BALDWIN. When you use the term ‘‘allowance rate,’’ is 

that the percentage of favorable decisions? 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. 

Senator BALDWIN. And just without the documents or reports in 

front of you, can you give us some idea of how much Judge 

Daugherty stood out from the rest of the ALJs in terms of the allowance rates? 

Ms. CARVER. In a monetary—I mean in a percentage or—— 

Senator BALDWIN. Percentage, yes. I mean, I guess what I would 

say is I am aware of some of the rates reported at a national scale 

by the Social Security Administration for favorable determinations 

of ALJ judges, 13 percent I have heard. I do not know if that was 

typical of any of the other ALJs, but how much did these stand 

out? 

Senator COBURN. Senator Baldwin, if I might interrupt you, I 

would ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the caseload 

of Judge Daugherty from 2006 to 2011. His average was 99.7 percent. 

Senator BALDWIN. And just so comparatively, can you give me 

any sense of the average of other ALJs in the Huntington office? 

Ms. CARVER. Well, it would depend on each ALJ. I mean, usually 

on average, I would say probably, in my opinion, about 60 percent, 
34 

60 to 70 percent were favorable. But with Judge Daugherty and 

Eric Conn, what I had seen was 100 percent. He did not even have 

hearings at a point for several years with him. And if you look at 

that statistic alone, what is the likelihood that every claimant that 

walks in your office is disabled? 

Senator BALDWIN. Right. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator McCaskill. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I, too, want to thank the witnesses for being here. I have a feeling it will not be the last time that you will be testifying somewhere. Clearly this report, it gets my heart beating a little faster, 

as a former prosecutor, because I guarantee you, you put some 

good—we have had some good investigators on it that work for this 

Committee, but you put some good prosecutors on these set of facts, 

and I think you are going to find something more than the pressure to move a docket quickly. 

I do not have a lot of questions for you all. I think you have gone 

over it very well. I would ask you, those of you that worked in the 

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) offices for the Social Security 

Administration, didn’t the other lawyers know the fix was in for 

Conn? Didn’t the other lawyers representing people with disabilities know this? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. I received numerous phone calls from other attorneys in the area while I was there, more toward the end of my time 

in 2007 than any other, that had complained that they were losing 

their clients to Mr. Conn’s office because Mr. Conn’s office was 

making the claim that they could get their case granted—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. And they could. 

Ms. GRIFFITH [continuing]. Within 30 days. 

Senator MCCASKILL. A hundred percent. 

Ms. CARVER. And in response to that, that is why Judge 

Daugherty stopped having Eric Conn hearings because of the numerous complaints. That way he could have hearings for other representatives and move more room in his hearing schedule for other 

representatives. 

Senator MCCASKILL. For other lawyers representing clients. 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Let me ask you this: I mean, this is a small 

community, the lawyers that do these cases, and make it an even 

smaller community because this is not a major metropolitan area. 

So everybody knew each other. All the judges knew each other. All 

the ALJs knew each other. All the lawyers knew each other. How 

many bar complaints were there about Eric Conn, if you know? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. To my knowledge, none. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And what about judicial complaints about 

the ALJ? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. To my knowledge, none. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, that is depressing. 

First of all, did you have the staff—if this pressure to move cases 

accurately, which I think originally there was a desire that these 

cases not languish and that the cases be moved through the system 
35 

as quickly as possible but with accuracy. Did you all have sufficient 

staff to do that? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Not at the time that this occurred. The staff in 

that office has increased considerably since I left. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So initially this—and it reminds me a little 

bit of background checks. We say we want the government to be 

smaller and have fewer employees, but then we have crucial functions where we do not have enough people to do the work, and that 

is the environment that this kind of nonsense occurs in, whether 

it is people pretending they are doing background checks when 

they are not, or judges pretend like they are making a decision on 

the merits when it is a pro forma decision. 

Let me also say, before I turn it back to the Chairman, because 

I am anxious to have some questions for the other panels, I am assuming that you saw meritorious complaints, all of you, for disability. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Yes. 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And I am sure you saw lawyers that were 

honest that were handling those clients. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Yes. 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And I want to say that because, knowing 

lawyers that do this kind of work, and knowing people who have 

disabilities that receive a disability check that deserve it, I want 

to be careful that we get that on the record. I thought that Senator 

Coburn did a great job on television last night talking about the 

damage this does to the many honest, hard-working, meritorious 

claims and honest, hard-working ALJs, and honest, hard-working 

lawyers that are participating in this system across the country. 

Clearly this is outrageous, and we have to get to the bottom of it. 

And if the facts lead where they appear to look like they lead, 

somebody should be prosecuted for it. 

But I did want to point out that there are lots of honest people 

representing lots of people that are in desperate need in front of 

good ALJs that are doing their best with the resources they have. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Yes, there are. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Does anybody disagree with that? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. No. 

Ms. CARVER. No. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Finally, for you, since you knew where Eric 

Conn was all the time, was there a lot of socializing with other lawyers and other judges on his schedule? 

Ms. SLONE. No. Usually the only time he socialized that I knew 

of with judges was at the hearing office when he had hearings before them. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CARPER. Before I yield back to Dr. Coburn—I know he 

has more questions—let me ask a couple of my own. 

What advice would you have to others, whether they happen to 

work in the Social Security Administration or some other part of 

our government, who see things that are wrong and are inclined 

to say something about it? I ride the train a lot, and we have a 

saying on the train: If you see something, say something. And we 
36 

sort of adopted that throughout our Homeland Security operation. 

But what advice would you have to others who see things that 

ought not to be happening and that might be helpful to them, 

maybe encouraging to them? 

Ms. CARVER. As you see these occurrences happening, I feel the 

most important thing to do is to document them, because without 

the documentation that we used, we would not have been able to 

prove it. And the administration, I feel, believes that we somehow 

may have gotten our information from—some other way, because 

they have since installed—I believe it is like six doors at $6,000 or 

$7,000 apiece that are soundproof doors in our office and soundproofed their offices, management has, and now locks their offices 

every time they leave, even if it is to a copier. 

So it is not a matter of us stealing information off of a supervisor’s desk. It is just a matter of reporting it and then following 

up with a simple e-mail saying this is what we discussed, I discussed this problem with you, I look forward to you resolving it in 

the near future. And that is what we did. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Ms. Griffith, what advice would you have 

to others who might see things that are untoward or wrong and 

might be inclined to speak up, or may be reluctant, may be fearful? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. I agree with Sarah that we would not be where 

we are today had we not kept accurate accounts of things that 

went on and records. But I think that the best advice I could give 

to anybody is not to back down and not to be afraid to say something. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Ms. Slone. 

Ms. SLONE. I agree with Ms. Carver and Ms. Griffith. The documentation is the most important thing. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Ms. Hicks, I called you ‘‘Ms. Martin.’’ I apologize. 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Either is fine, and I agree with all of them. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. What advice do you have for us? This is 

a Committee that is called ‘‘Homeland Security and Governmental 

Affairs.’’ It used to be just ‘‘Governmental Affairs.’’ It historically 

has broad oversight responsibilities for the whole Federal Government or much of the Federal Government. What we have done 

here, under the leadership of Dr. Coburn and Senator Levin, is exercise our responsibilities under the governmental affairs piece of 

our Committee. 

What advice would you have for us? What advice would you have 

for us given what you have been through and what you have 

learned and that we might be more constructive in the work that 

we do and more supportive, frankly, of people like you who see 

things that ought not to be happening? 

Ms. CARVER. I feel that there should be some type of a system 

of accountability within each administration. I feel that for the 

most part managers, supervisors, ALJs, those higher up in the 

agency are promoted, allowed to retire, are given monetary awards 

that we as employees, we do not get. We are held to the same 

standard of conduct, but we do not get the—we would be fired, terminated, disciplined. I have never known of, up until this investigation, anybody, any judge, any manager that has been dis-
37 

ciplined—they have been removed and promoted or a position created for them, but never held accountable for their actions. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Again, Ms. Griffith, advice for us, please? 

Ms. GRIFFITH. I think it is important to do what you have already started to do, to take a very hard look at what is going on 

with Social Security, because it is not just about one judge and one 

attorney when you look at it, because it is not just occurring there. 

It is occurring everywhere. It is something that needs to have more 

safeguards put in place to prevent this from happening anywhere 

else, because look at what it has cost. Just look at what one judge 

and one attorney have cost the American taxpayers. It needs to be 

strengthened, and there needs to be more safeguards in place to 

protect not only the employees but to protect the American taxpayers from having this benefit system hijacked. 

Chairman CARPER. Ms. Slone, Ms. Hicks, any advice for us? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. I think maybe trying to make changes in 

the ways that the lawyers and judges actually communicate together and spending time together and allowing them to develop a 

personal relationship. I think that a change there would probably 

help. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Thank you. I would say, before I turn it 

over to Dr. Coburn for his remaining questions, one of the things 

we have sought to do in other parts of our oversight is to look at 

programs like Medicare and Medicaid and to see where technology 

can be used to put a spotlight on behavior that is questionable, untoward, where you have doctors maybe prescribing large amounts 

of controlled substances to a lot of people, in some cases to the 

same person over and over and over again, different pharmacies 

and that kind of thing. There is a pattern of behavior that we are 

able to detect using technology. Credit card companies have been 

doing this for some time. If I end up charging things in Nepal on 

my credit card and I have never been to Nepal, that just pops up, 

and for the credit card company, they say, well, something is going 

on here, and for them to give me a call, and say, ‘‘What are you 

doing in Nepal? ’’ And I am not really there. But technology can be 

our friend here. And to the extent that we use it, we can put people 

like you less likely in harm’s way or less likely in a position of having to face the prospect of losing your job and your standing in the 

community. Technology does not solve all of our problems, but it 

can really help. 

Do you all have any comment on that? Then I will yield to Dr. 

Coburn. 

Ms. CARVER. I feel though somebody outside of the agency needs 

to know how to read that technology. I mean, we have the availability to see those reports. That was published in that Oregonian 

article as far as the favorable rates, and anybody could look at this 

information, but we need somebody on the outside that knows how 

to look at the information and know what is going on, what the 

procedures are within the agency to be able to recognize, hey, this 

is a red flag here. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. Dr. Coburn. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. I am going to go through this fairly 

quickly because there are some things I want to get on the record. 
38 

1See Exhibit No. 22, which appears in the Appendix on page 725. 

2See Exhibit No. 28, which appears in the Appendix on page 732. 

Sarah, if you would look at Exhibit 221 and 28,2 I am going to 

ask you some questions about that. And then I am going to turn 

to you, Ms. Slone. 

This is an e-mail you sent to Mr. Hall on January 25, 2007. It 

was one of the times you alerted him that Judge Daugherty was 

assigning himself cases represented by Mr. Conn, and you wrote 

the following: ‘‘As you are aware, DBD has on his own initiative 

elected to go in and assign himself several electronic cases, all of 

which are Eric Conn cases.’’ 

How did you know that Judge Daugherty was assigning himself 

cases? It is just your e-mail. 

Ms. CARVER. OK. Jennifer had came to me as the union representative and had discussed this situation, because he was one 

of the first judges that was trained on the electronic file. However, 

the electronic files, we had cases from other attorney representatives, but he was selecting only those. 

Senator COBURN. Is this the first time you noticed that he was 

doing this? 

Ms. CARVER. This is probably around the first time that Jennifer, 

yes, had come to me over it. Now, she may have, verbally or written, told him, but this is the first time I believe I made him aware 

of that. 

Senator COBURN. Were you aware of any time that Judge 

Daugherty ever assigned himself cases represented by another lawyer? 

Ms. CARVER. No. 

Senator COBURN. All right. You said in your e-mail that the 

agency could take certain steps to put a stop to Eric Conn calling 

DBD and giving him a list of electronic cases. Why do you think 

Mr. Conn was calling Judge Daugherty to let him know his cases 

were on the way? 

Ms. CARVER. Because he could intercept these cases before they 

were assigned to another administrative law judge. 

Senator COBURN. Is that the only explanation, that he would 

know what the cases were to go into the file, unless he—if he had 

no knowledge of what those cases were, how would he know what 

cases to look for? Could he search it by the lawyer’s last name? 

Ms. CARVER. No, not if they had not been receipted yet. 

Senator COBURN. So, therefore, he had to know the cases. 

Ms. CARVER. He had to know the Social Security number. 

Senator COBURN. Got you. All right. 

Finally, you ended the e-mail saying, ‘‘All of this is not going unnoticed. People on the floor are beginning to talk and, if not taken 

care of, this could escalate into a bigger problem.’’ What do you 

mean widely known? Was everybody in the office talking about 

this? 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. Well, I should not use the word ‘‘everybody.’’ 

Ms. CARVER. I mean—— 

Senator COBURN. A large number of people were aware of this. 
39 

1See Exhibit No. 28, which appears in the Appendix on page 732. 

Ms. CARVER. A large number of the girls who were processing the 

cases. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. 

Now go to Exhibit 28,1 if you would, Sarah, please? This problem 

did not seem to go away after you raised it to management’s attention. If you will look at Exhibit 28, it is an e-mail from March 29, 

2010, from you to Judge William Gitlow, another ALJ at the Huntington office. You wrote: ‘‘For your information, someone was closing this case, and it was originally your case, and DBD took it and 

did an OTR on it.’’ 

Can you describe in more detail what happened and why you 

sent this e-mail? 

Ms. CARVER. This was one of many e-mails that I began to actually send to the ALJs themselves in hopes that the ALJs would 

start complaining to Charlie Andrus. 

Senator COBURN. And an on-the-record determination can only 

be made positively. If it is a denial, it has to have a hearing. Is 

that correct? 

Ms. CARVER. Correct. 

Senator COBURN. This e-mail was sent 21⁄2 years after the 2000 

e-mail from Jennifer Griffith, which we had discussed. Did you see 

Judge Daugherty assign himself other judges’ cases after management was made aware of the problem in 2007? 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. Was there ever any followup to your e-mail, either from Judge Gitlow or from management? 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. I had talked with Judge Gitlow on several occasions. He—— 

Senator COBURN. And? 

Ms. CARVER. He said that he had e-mailed Chief ALJ Andrus on 

several occasions and even had told Judge Andrus that if he did 

not take care of the problem that he was going to take it outside 

of the office. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you. 

Ms. Slone, you actually worked for Mr. Conn for a long period of 

time. That is correct? 

Ms. SLONE. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. Can you describe, what did you actually do for 

him? I mean, were you his Miss Everything? 

Ms. SLONE. I started out as a claims taker. I worked several positions within the office. When I left, I was doing managerial duties. 

Senator COBURN. Were you his most senior employee? 

Ms. SLONE. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. In terms of responsibility? 

Ms. SLONE. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. All right. For the time that you worked in Mr. 

Conn’s office, how important would you say Judge Daugherty was 

to the success of the law firm? 

Ms. SLONE. Very successful. 

Senator COBURN. OK. 

Ms. SLONE. Very important. 
40 

1See Exhibit No. 18, which appears in the Appendix on page 479. 

Senator COBURN. When did you first grow concerned about the 

relationship between Mr. Conn and Judge Daugherty? 

Ms. SLONE. When I first moved to the hearing department and 

noticed that Judge Daugherty was the only one that we did not 

hold hearings for, I remember asking, why it was different for him. 

We were just told that this is what he preferred to do. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Can you tell us what a DB list was and 

how it was used? 

Ms. SLONE. The DB list was a list of claimants that DB would 

call once a month—— 

Senator COBURN. DB being Judge Daugherty. 

Ms. SLONE. Judge Daugherty would call once a month and give 

us a list of claimants that he wanted us to send for an evaluation 

and send to him for an on-the-record decision. 

Senator COBURN. OK. And how were these lists created? 

Ms. SLONE. I would create the list when Judge Daugherty would 

call and give me the information. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Would you look at Exhibit 181? At the 

top of the first document it says, ‘‘DB September 2009.’’ Another 

one on the stack says, ‘‘DB June quarters due on 6/16/06.’’ Can you 

describe to us what all that means? 

Ms. SLONE. You have the claimant’s name, their Social Security 

number; ‘‘physical’’ would mean which kind of report that Judge 

Daugherty requested. AOD is amended onset date. Judge 

Daugherty would request either if there was a prior decision or if 

there was an age due to the grid rules, if they had turned 50, he 

would require—— 

Senator COBURN. So he would back date it to the age grid or he 

would back date it to the last denial? 

Ms. SLONE. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Some list the word ‘‘mental’’ next to 

the claimant’s name and some say ‘‘physical.’’ Why did sometimes 

it say either? 

Ms. SLONE. He would leave that at the discretion of Eric, which 

report he would—— 

Senator COBURN. Submit? 

Ms. SLONE. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. All right. A lot of the claimants have what are 

called amended onset dates. Why would Judge Daugherty do that? 

I think we covered that. 

Ms. SLONE. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. Jamie, Exhibit 18, there is a huge stack of DB 

lists dated from 2006 to 2010. When did they start first using DB 

lists? 

Ms. SLONE. I do not know when they started using them. When 

I moved to the hearing department, they were already in place, so 

I do not know when they began. 

Senator COBURN. So that was prior to 2006. 

Ms. SLONE. No. I did not move to the hearing department until 

maybe late 2008. 

Senator COBURN. OK. But they were there then? 

Ms. SLONE. Yes. 
41 

Senator COBURN. All right. How often did Judge Daugherty call 

your office with a list of clients? 

Ms. SLONE. Once a month. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Who would Mr. Conn send his clients 

to once Judge Daugherty called to say mental or physical? 

Ms. SLONE. If it was a physical, it was primarily Dr. Frederic 

Huffnagle until his death. If it was mental, it was Dr. Brad Adkins. 

Senator COBURN. OK. And what would they get in return? 

Ms. SLONE. Dr. Huffnagle was $400 per evaluation, and Dr. Brad Adkins—I am not exactly sure. He was in the $300 range. 

Senator COBURN. And they would give a finding as to what Mr. 

Conn wanted? 

Ms. SLONE. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. Would the doctors fill out the RFCs themselves 

or would someone else do that? 

Ms. SLONE. Someone else did it. 

Senator COBURN. Did you ever have occupational therapists in 

your office to determine these forms? 

Ms. SLONE. Not to my knowledge. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Where did Mr. Conn find doctors that 

he knew would give him the medical answers that he wanted? 

Ms. SLONE. Dr. Huffnagle had already been there performing 

evaluations for several years prior to my employment. The same 

with Dr. Brad Adkins. When Dr. Huffnagle did pass away, he 

looked for some other doctors to fill his shoes, and he would look 

for doctors that had had prior sanctions and problems. He said that 

it was easier to hire them. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Ms. Hicks, what did you do for Mr. 

Conn? And how long did you work there? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. I was with the law firm for 6 years. I did 

a number of different things as well. I actually filed claims with 

the Social Security office. I assisted in managing the office at one 

point. I have even been the receptionist. Actually, for about a year 

and a half or 2 years, I mostly went to hearings with Eric. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Where would Mr. Conn’s clients go when 

they needed to be seen by a doctor? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Eric had a medical wing, but he only had 

that maybe the last year or 2 years that I was there. Mostly they 

were seen there. Dr. Ammisetty’s office was actually within walking distance from Eric Conn’s office, so the clients would go to his 

office. And for Brad Adkins, I think they mostly saw him at his 

own office as well. 

Senator COBURN. Could you describe to me a typical day when 

Dr. Huffnagle was seeing patients in Eric Conn’s office, the number 

of patients, the amount of time spent with the patient? You can 

generalize if not specific. 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. OK. When Dr. Huffnagle was in the office, 

he probably saw anywhere from 15 to 25 clients. He did not spend 

a lot of time with them at all. His wife actually saw them first. I 

am not exactly sure what she did. But he only saw them for maybe 

20 minutes at the most, sometimes less than that. 

Senator COBURN. Was there ever a time Dr. Huffnagle did not 

sign the pre-filled-out RFC form? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Not that I am aware of. 
42 

1See Exhibit No. 45, which appears in the Appendix on page 774. 

Senator COBURN. Was there ever a time that you were aware 

that he requested a change in an RFC form? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Not that I am aware of. 

Senator COBURN. SSA rules prohibit claimant lawyers from 

charging their clients for doctor visits when additional evidence is 

requested. Where would Mr. Conn get the money to pay for these 

exams? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. I am not sure where the money came from. 

He wrote checks to each of the doctors. I assume that that was 

from the office account. 

Senator COBURN. Would he require all clients to sign a contract 

on camera promising to pay for the additional medical costs themselves? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. They all signed a contract. For a while it 

was on camera, but that did not last very long. There were so 

many that came in, it was too hard and cost him too much money 

to keep tapes for that camera. 

Senator COBURN. Jamie, I want to go back to Dr. Huffnagle. 

When he was finished examining someone, later you would get a 

brief report and then sign a form called the ‘‘Residual Functional 

Capacity.’’ These forms would then be sent to Judge Daugherty to 

approve the cases. Please look at Exhibit 45.1 Can you explain how 

Mr. Conn used this form and others like it? 

Ms. SLONE. For the physical medical assessment form, during the 

time that I dealt with these, there were 10 different ones. They 

were just labeled RFC numbers 1 through 10. These would be 

printed out. If we had 50 claimants that came in to see Dr. 

Huffnagle in the course of 2 days, then 50 of these would be printed out, and someone would just handwrite the name of the individual and their Social Security number at the top attached to the 

medical report, and both would be signed at the same time by Dr. 

Huffnagle. 

Senator COBURN. And these were pre-filled-out forms, correct? 

Ms. SLONE. Yes, sir. The only thing that was blank was the 

name and Social Security number. 

Senator COBURN. I would note for the record, of all the forms 

that Mr. Conn had prepared, every one of them, every one of the 

forms said ‘‘Demonstrated reliability: Poor.’’ Every form. So that 

means nobody came through Mr. Conn’s office and his RFCs, nobody was better than poor at demonstrating reliability. That will 

be important later. 

How was it decided which RFC form would go with which client? 

Ms. SLONE. There was no form or fashion. It was just random—— 

Senator COBURN. It was just random—— 

Ms. SLONE. Random assignment, yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Did Dr. Huffnagle ever review any of the 

RFC forms to ensure that they matched the claimant’s limitations? 

Ms. SLONE. Not that I am aware of. 

Senator COBURN. Did Dr. Huffnagle ever ask for an RFC to be 

changed? 

Ms. SLONE. Not that I am aware of. 
43 

1See Exhibit No. 75, which appears in the Appendix on page 1266. 

Senator COBURN. Would other ALJs call Mr. Conn’s office and 

give lists of claimants they planned to approve on the record like 

this? 

Ms. SLONE. No, sir. 

Senator COBURN. Why do you think Judge Daugherty would do 

this? What do you think was going on? And I am not asking you 

to speculate. What should common sense tell you? 

Ms. SLONE. Common sense always told us and, talk of the office 

was that he was paid to do so. 

Senator COBURN. All right. I would ask unanimous consent to 

enter into the record the list of RFC forms and note that they all 

show ‘‘Poor’’ on ‘‘Demonstrated reliability.’’ 

Chairman CARPER. Without objection. 

Senator COBURN. Ms. Hicks, I have one other set of questions for 

you. In May 2011, some of the details about the arrangement with 

Mr. Conn and Judge Daugherty became public in an article, which 

you before related to. What was the reaction inside the Conn law 

office at that time? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Chaos. 

Senator COBURN. Chaos. 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Absolute chaos. 

Senator COBURN. Describe that. 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Everyone was in a panic. There was not a 

lot of work done at all. I remember actually the day that Damian 

Paletta came to visit our office, no one spoke to him, and he left 

and went to the Subway next door, and we had employees there, 

and Eric Conn actually told me to go get them, that they all had 

to come out of the Subway. He did not want anybody around him 

or anything. 

Eric actually at the time had to get himself prescribed medication, and one of the doctors gave that to him, so he laughed and 

joked that when the OIG came to our office to ask him questions 

that he was high on the pills he was prescribed. That is the only 

way he was able to speak to him. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Please look, if you would, Ms. Hicks, 

at Exhibit 75.1 This is a receipt from Family Dollar for a throwaway cell phone. Can you explain why Mr. Conn would use these 

phones? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. After the article came out in the Wall Street 

Journal, he actually purchased a lot of these. He was afraid for 

Judge Daugherty to call the office because he said if the phones 

were tapped or if anyone ever looked at the phone records, they 

would see that they were still communicating. So he purchased a 

lot of these. And the reason for that was the first time they had 

purchased cell phones, Judge Daugherty forgot to use his TracFone 

and called Eric—I do not remember if it was from his home number or from the Social Security office, but he had called the 

TracFone without using his TracFone, so they had to throw them 

away and get new ones. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Ms. Slone, one of the most troubling 

findings of our investigation is Mr. Conn destroyed a huge volume 

of documents related to his disability practice once his relationship 
44 

with Judge Daugherty became public. Can you describe what you 

saw in regard to what happened in those events? 

Ms. SLONE. Most of the documents that I knew that were destroyed came after his mother left the office. We went through and 

there was a lot of changes, of course, made in the office, there were 

several files that were kept in what we called the ‘‘closed building.’’ 

They were closed files. Those were, depending on their age, gotten 

rid of. A lot of documents that were in his mother’s office, he went 

through those himself and decided what needed to be destroyed. 

Senator COBURN. Was this after the Inspector General’s visit? 

Ms. SLONE. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. So all this occurred after the Inspector General’s visit? 

Ms. SLONE. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. What was unusual this time about 

what had happened in the past with normal document destruction? 

Ms. SLONE. To my knowledge, I do not remember us having, ever 

having a document destruction of this size. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Why do you think he wanted to destroy the DB lists? 

Ms. SLONE. I guess just not to have anything that had anything 

to do with DB on it. 

Senator COBURN. Was there conversation specifically about making sure the DB lists were destroyed? 

Ms. SLONE. Yes, sir. He told us to check our offices, especially the 

ones in the hearing department, and make sure that we did not 

have any DB lists or any documents that had DB’s name on it. 

Senator COBURN. What did he do with the electronic files? 

Ms. SLONE. The electronic files—I am sorry. Do you mean like 

the SSA electronic files or—— 

Senator COBURN. No. The electronic files, the computer files at 

your office. 

Ms. SLONE. Oh. We had replaced several computers in our office 

with new ones, and he would have employees remove the hard 

drive from the computers and destroy them. What they would do 

is smash them with a hammer and then later burn those. 

Senator COBURN. Did Mr. Conn ever make any statement to you 

about why he was destroying all of his documents? 

Ms. SLONE. Just that he wanted—he called it ‘‘spring cleaning,’’ 

that he just did not want to have any documents in the office pertaining to DB. 

Senator COBURN. To Judge Daugherty. 

Ms. SLONE. To Judge Daugherty. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank 

you all very much. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, Dr. Coburn. Senator Levin. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just have one additional question here. Ms. Slone and Ms. 

Hicks, did either or both of you watch as Mr. Conn looked for doctors with disciplinary problems? 

Ms. SLONE. Yes. 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. Both of you. 

Ms. SLONE. Yes. 
45 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. What did you—you say you watched. Where was 

he looking? 

Ms. SLONE. In his office. He was looking on the computer at the 

Kentucky Board of Licensure, and he would look for doctors that 

had had sanctions or problems with their license in the past, and 

he would print out their information. I know that I had made several phone calls to doctors to ask if they would be interested in 

doing evaluations for him. 

Senator LEVIN. Ms. Hicks, is this true? You also saw that? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. And the reason is that, as I think you testified 

to, it would be easier—he said it would be easier to work with them 

if they had prior sanctions? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. He actually had said before that—he referred to those as ‘‘whore doctors.’’ He said that if they had sanctions and had their license suspended before, that he could get 

them to do whatever he wanted, and they were cheaper to work 

with. 

Senator LEVIN. You heard him say that? 

Ms. (MARTIN) HICKS. Yes. 

Ms. SLONE. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. I am done. 

Chairman CARPER. Ladies, I think that concludes this part of our 

hearing. Do any of you want to make a brief closing remark, anything that you would like to say before you are dismissed? Please. 

Ms. CARVER. No, thank you. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. We thank you. We thank you very 

much. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. We thank you for listening to us. 

Chairman CARPER. We thank Dr. Coburn, Senator Levin, and 

their staffs, and particularly we thank all of you. 

Senator LEVIN. I think you had to get here on your own dime as 

well, didn’t you? 

Chairman CARPER. Well, Albert Einstein used to say in adversity 

lies opportunity. It has been true for a long time, and there is a 

lot of adversity here. There has been a lot of adversity in Huntington, West Virginia, and I bet there is some opportunity here. 

And the opportunity is to learn from this experience and to make 

sure it is not happening in other places around the country where 

they are trying to make these difficult Social Security disability determinations, and so we can better ensure that we are not wasting 

money, throwing money away, at a time when we are running out 

of money in the trust fund. And so my hope is, my prayer is that 

something good is going to happen from what have been a tough 

couple of years. 

And with that having been said, before I excuse you and bring 

forth our second panel, we are going to start voting. We have at 

least one vote at 5 or 5:30pm for the full Senate. Dr. Coburn is 

going to hustle over there and vote and then come back, relieve me, 

I will go back and vote, and we will all return shortly after that. 

That way we will not have to slow things down further. Dr. 

Coburn. 
46 

Senator COBURN. I just had one additional question. 

Chairman CARPER. Please, go ahead. 

Senator COBURN. We are going to have a doctor in the next panel 

that both made recommendations for Social Security and recommendations for Mr. Conn. Was it ever noticed in the Social Security office, the disparity of those two sets of recommendations, 

one by a paid attorney and one paid by the Social Security office, 

and that they said opposite things? 

Ms. CARVER. Yes. 

Ms. GRIFFITH. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. That is the last question. Thank you so much. 

Ms. CARVER. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. And as our first panel prepares to leave, I 

will ask our second panel to approach the table. I will make a brief 

introduction of our witnesses on the second panel, and I will ask 

them to take an oath and be sworn in to testify. 

Gentlemen, thank you for joining us this afternoon. I will briefly 

introduce this panel of three witnesses, and we will begin with 

David P. Herr, a doctor from West Union, Ohio. 

Next we have Dr. A. Bradley Adkins, a psychologist from Pikesville, Kentucky. 

And, finally, Dr. Srinivas Ammisetty, a pulmonary disease specialist, who comes to us today from Stanville, Kentucky. Is that correct? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Yes, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. As you may know, our 

standard practice in investigative hearings is to ask that our witnesses be sworn in. So at this time, I am going to ask each of you, 

if you would, to please stand and raise your right hand. Do you 

swear that the testimony you will give before this Committee will 

be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help 

you, God? 

Dr. HERR. Yes. 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes. 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Yes, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. Please be seated. 

Dr. Herr, do you have any opening remarks, sir? 

TESTIMONY OF DAVID P. HERR, D.O., WEST UNION, OHIO 

Dr. HERR. No, sir, I do not. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Dr. Herr, do you have any corrections to the statement of facts laid out in Dr. Coburn’s opening 

statement or to the facts included in the staff report released by 

the Committee today? 

Dr. HERR. Mr. Carper, based upon recommendation of counsel, I 

respectfully decline to answer based upon my Fifth Amendment 

rights. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. We have other questions. Is it your 

intention to assert your Fifth Amendment right to any question 

that might be directed to you by the Committee today? 

Dr. HERR. Yes, sir, it is. 
47 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Adkins appears in the Appendix on page 115. 

2The prepared statement of Mr. Ammisetty appears in the Appendix on page 120. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Given the fact that you intend to 

assert a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to all 

questions asked of you today by this Committee, you are excused. 

Dr. HERR. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Dr. Adkins, you are recognized for your statement. Welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF ALFRED BRADLEY ADKINS,1 PH.D., PIKEVILLE, 

KENTUCKY 

Mr. ADKINS. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, my 

statement will be relatively short. 

I am here today to tell the truth. I have nothing to hide. If the 

ladies and gentlemen on the Committee have read my testimony, 

I do understand that it seems like the biggest question regarding 

my performance or my relationship with Mr. Eric Conn was the 

RFCs in question. When asked, I would be more than happy to illuminate or talk about that. 

But the biggest thing you asked if I had any reaction to anything 

that had been said, particularly by Mr. Coburn. I would take exception to being painted with the broad brush of being someone who 

was recruited by Mr. Eric Conn. The fact of the matter is I have 

no storied or no checkered past professionally. There have been no 

sanctions against me, nothing of that kind. And also, I was not recruited by Mr. Conn. Actually, several years before the RFC incidents in question came about, I went to Mr. Conn. At that time I 

was very young in my practice. I was trying to build a practice. At 

that time I actually went to Mr. Conn and several other attorneys 

in the area and became a vendor for the State of Kentucky Department of Disability Determinations. 

So the fact of the matter is that I was not recruited. I was trying 

to build a practice and looking for potential referral bases. 

Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. You may continue if you have some other 

things you would like to say, and then we will hear from Dr. 

Ammisetty, and then ask questions of both of you. But you are welcome to continue. 

Mr. ADKINS. No, sir. I believe that is all I have to say at this 

time. Thank you, though. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Dr. Ammisetty. 

TESTIMONY OF SRINIVAS M. AMMISETTY, M.D.,2 STANVILLE, 

KENTUCKY 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Respectable Senators, good afternoon. I came 

from South India, and I trained in Chicago, and then I moved to 

underserved area, Stanville, Kentucky. I have five hospital active 

privileges, regional hospitals. I am the director for a couple of hospitals. I never had any license issues on my practice. I never had 

any medical-legal problems. I never had any personal legal problems. I am a physician, my practice is an honest practice. And I 

am happy with my wife. She is also a physician. And the place I 

came from, South India, ruled by the British for almost 250 years, 
48 

is relatively flat farming land. Three generations of my family 

worked on the farms under the strict rule, strict law, we have 

grown up, three generations, hard work, finally we became professionals. 

Chairman CARPER. No. What did you raise, what did you grow? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Rice paddy lands. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. 

Dr. AMMISETTY. And then almost, this is a land—strict law and 

rule, so we moved to America. I moved to America, and my family 

members also moved here. Almost 20, 25 members in my close family, but physicians successfully practicing in the USA for the last 

30 to 40 years. 

In my home we have two girls that are medical students in a topnotch hospital in the USA. One girl is a Fulbright scholar, Marshall nominee, and my one son, he is the only one in Pike County 

the National Merit Scholar for this year semifinals. The parents’ 

character reflects in the kids, and I do not have any problem. I am 

happy to answer any questions you have. 

The reason—I am a happy practice. I built up my practice, and 

I am part of the community. I never give any pending bills to collection agency all my life practice. Usually physicians deal with the 

collection agency, but I become a part of the community. 

Around 2005, Mr. Eric C. Conn was my patient. His mom also 

became my patient. During that time he offered me a position that, 

‘‘If you come to my office, I can give you heavy business, you do 

not need to practice at all.’’ But I was building my practice, pulmonary and sleep, and so I refused. 

And then around 2010, December, he said that his one office physician passed away, other physician was so sick, so he asked me 

to do a comprehensive exam for his patients. And he is next door 

to me, and a good samaritan, and I accepted. 

So initially comprehensive, then I said it was a good thing to 

come to my office so when I have a look, I can have better understanding. So he started scheduling patients to my office, and I was 

seeing the patients around—so December 2010. And then around 

May, I was so busy, I mean, he is giving—more demanding, writing 

a letter that I need more quick response and more deadlines or 

something. I already have a busy practice, pure busy practice, good 

practice. Even though I am board certified in addiction medicine, 

very few doctors in Kentucky are really board certified. If I am 

looking for money, I can start pain practice because Kentucky is a 

hotbed for the pain patients. I can get with 10 minutes $400 for 

a patient visit. I can see 30 to 40 patients a day. That is common 

practice with pain medications in Pike in Kentucky. But I never 

practiced pain medication—pain practice in my life, even though I 

am a board-certified, well-qualified addiction person. 

So around that time he was more demanding. Slowly I started, 

I am weaning off, I am worried because he is a big attorney in the 

local area, find billboards around my area. So I’m delaying and 

slowly, and then at one time he asked me—his assistant, David 

Clark, can you at least do a chart review? So last 2 months, I did 

a chart review for him, and I stopped completely in August. In the 

meantime, Ms. Slone, talked about Subway. The same Subway, my 

girls go to the Subway. So the rumors came up, and I did not know, 
49 

even though—then 2 months ago, next door, he was raided by the 

agents, because that reason—I was in my own practice, I just go 

to hospital and see the patients, come into the office, see the patients, and if I have time, go and spend my time with my kids, my 

wife. That is my life. 

So, finally, my girls brought me information—this is going on in 

the Eric C. Conn office, and then I reviewed the information, and 

then I stopped my practice with him completely. Once I knew, that 

is not good for me, I stopped that. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you for that testimony. 

Dr. Coburn has offered to remain. The vote is underway on the 

floor simultaneous with a business committee meeting, a markup 

of the nomination by the President for a deputy position at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). We are going to do both 

of those at the same time. Dr. Coburn is going to stay here. He has 

a number of questions to ask of both of you, and I will be back to 

join you very shortly. 

Thank you. Dr. Coburn, thanks. 

Senator COBURN [presiding]. All right. Thank you. Maybe I can 

get these finished before you get back. 

Well, thank you both for being here. I appreciate you coming. 

Some very concerning things, if you listened to our first panel. 

Dr. Ammisetty, I have a list of questions I will go through with 

you, but my biggest—have you ever seen the American Medical Association (AMA) guide to evaluation for physical disability? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. The physical? 

Senator COBURN. Have you ever seen the AMA guide for—— 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Yes, sir, definitely. 

Senator COBURN [continuing]. Guidelines for—did you follow that 

as you did these exams on these patients? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. The RFC I did not follow, sir. 

Senator COBURN. I am sorry? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. RFC I did not follow. 

Senator COBURN. But you did for the rest of it? You did a mental 

status exam on every patient? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. No, sir. 

Senator COBURN. And why not? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Because it is a complete physical examination. 

Senator COBURN. Well, complete physical examination includes a 

mental status exam. 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Mental status, I did not do anything. 

Senator COBURN. You did not do mental status exam. And it was 

your testimony and your feeling that the RFC forms were filled out 

by occupational therapists? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. And where did you learn that from? Who told 

you that? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Initially, when I started working, seeing the patients, I told them I am good at physical examination and also pulmonary evaluation, because being a pulmonologist, I do the pulmonary evaluation. That is one reason—— 

Senator COBURN. I understand that, but my question is: Who 

told you that occupational therapists did the portion of the 

exam—— 
50 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Mr. Eric C. Conn and his assistant, David Clark. 

The RFCs, we do not need to worry, we will take care of the patient—we will take over that—— 

Senator COBURN. And he assured you that they were done by occupational therapists? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. That is your testimony? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. And he communicated that to you? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. And so on your exams—I have no 

doubt that you are a great physician. And I did not say ‘‘doctor.’’ 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Thank you. 

Senator COBURN. I said ‘‘physician’’ because that means you care 

for the whole person. And I have no doubt, your testimony, you 

were trying to do Mr. Conn a favor because he was in a pinch, so 

I do not doubt the veracity of that. 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Thank you. 

Senator COBURN. And you said in your opening statement, if I 

followed it, that you really were not aware of the size and scope 

of Mr. Conn’s practice when you started doing these exams for 

him? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. He had a huge practice, no doubt, sir. In the 

area he is the only one, and his billboards and talk, 90 percent of 

Social Security, he is Mr. Social Security. 

Senator COBURN. OK. And it is your testimony that you quit 

working for Mr. Conn in October 2011 in part because of the negative news coverage he was getting? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Negative news coverage, and also I have beautiful, good practice, and suddenly Ms. Slone or somebody call, ‘‘Can 

you see a patient?’’ And I had to hold my other schedule. And also 

he is demanding. He wrote a letter demanding that one. So I could 

not tolerate and all these things—— 

Senator COBURN. You could not meet his demands. But your testimony to our investigators was that after the news broke and the 

investigation started that that is when you quit. But it actually 

took you 5 months after the first news story to stop seeing patients 

for Mr. Conn. Can you explain that? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. That is—as I told you before, sir, I am busy with 

my practice. I go to five hospitals, and I did not know what is going 

on next door. 

Senator COBURN. OK. 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Next door. That is the one reason we are—— 

Senator COBURN. So you were not aware until 5 months after the 

major—— 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN [continuing]. News story broke what was being 

insinuated but not proven. 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. That is all—let me see. And your testimony was that you saw all these patients at your office? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. At no time did you see a patient in Mr. Conn’s 

office? 
51 

1See Exhibit No. 48, which appears in the Appendix on page 1087. 

Dr. AMMISETTY. He has everything in his office, and he invited 

me to come and do everything in his office. 

Senator COBURN. But you said no? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. I said no. 

Senator COBURN. All right. 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Because that is my professional pride. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Let me go to the RFCs for a minute. 

If you did not perform an evaluation on the claimants’ RFCs, who 

did? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. From the Eric C. Conn’s office, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. But you have heard testimony that 

nobody did those today, they were randomly filled out by his office 

staff? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. That I came to know, sir. 

Senator COBURN. Yes. So why did you sign them? If you did not 

do them, you put your signature on them. 

Dr. AMMISETTY. As we know, as being a physician for many 

years, we send a lot of patients for the home health care, and I did 

not go there, and the home health people evaluate and bring it to 

me, usually we sign it. That is the routine way. And also he said 

this is a part of the process. 

Senator COBURN. Were you unaware of the importance of RFCs 

in determining disability? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. I did not know that much about the RFCs, sir. 

If I knew they were important, I would not sign as a physician for 

so many years. 

Senator COBURN. In hindsight, did you make a mistake signing 

those RFCs? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Definitely, sir. 

Senator COBURN. You did. And I take it from your testimony also 

that one of the reasons—and I know the relationship here. One of 

the reasons you helped Mr. Conn out was he was a former patient. 

Is that correct? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. He was a former patient. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. But he was not currently under your care. Is 

that correct? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. No, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you. 

Did you ever visit the Conn law offices? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. I visited a total of three times. One time when 

the great President Abraham Lincoln statue opened. Second time, 

was at Christmas and the third time, when I got the letter, I was 

worried that everybody know he is a powerful man, and I never 

had any legal problems in the country here, anywhere. And my 

mentality is do not make enemy, just wean him off. So I went there 

and that is the reason, sir. 

Senator COBURN. Dr. Ammisetty, would you look at Exhibit 481

in that book sitting next to you? Number 48. 

Dr. AMMISETTY. This is up to 45? 

Senator COBURN. It should be 48. We will help you. 

Dr. AMMISETTY. OK. 

Senator COBURN. It is in the next book. 
52 

Please look at the third page of this document with the heading 

‘‘Physical Medical Assessment.’’ 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. Did you fill this form out? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. No, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Do you know who did fill out this 

form? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. His office staff, after I dictated my full comprehensive history, and it is taken by the office staff, and they 

brought it back to my office with this form. Then I sign it. 

Senator COBURN. All right. How did you know that the information in this physical assessment form was accurate? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. I trusted them, sir. 

Senator COBURN. In other words, you did not know that it was 

accurate. You just trusted the—— 

Dr. AMMISETTY. I trusted them, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you. 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Because he is an attorney, he knows the law. 

Senator COBURN. All right. That is all the questions I have for 

you. Good job. 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Thank you. I really appreciate it, sir. 

Senator COBURN. Dr. Adkins, thank you for being here. 

Mr. ADKINS. Thank you for inviting me, sir. 

Senator COBURN. You started working for Mr. Conn in 2005. Is 

that correct? 

Mr. ADKINS. It may have been a little bit before that. I really do 

not remember the exact date that I—— 

Senator COBURN. So late 2004, 2005, or was it—— 

Mr. ADKINS. Maybe even 2003. I am not real sure. 

Senator COBURN. All right. So possibly 2003. 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. It is true you do work for the Social Security 

Administration as well. 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. All right. And how much does Social Security 

pay you for an evaluation? 

Mr. ADKINS. Well—— 

Senator COBURN. Give me the range. 

Mr. ADKINS. Anywhere from—there is the basic evaluation. Basically it just consists of the clinical interview that—oh, gosh, when 

I am under the gun. 

Senator COBURN. It is OK. It is $80 to $175. 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes. There you go. 

Senator COBURN. I will help you out there. And how much were 

you paid to do evaluations by Mr. Conn? 

Mr. ADKINS. Well, by Mr. Conn as well as any other attorney, the 

usual fee was $350. 

Senator COBURN. All right. And how much time on average did 

you spend with the claimants for Mr. Conn versus the amount of 

time you spent for claimants with the agency? 

Mr. ADKINS. If the agency requested just the basic clinical interview, you are looking at maybe like half an hour, something like 

that. 

Senator COBURN. OK. 
53 

Mr. ADKINS. If the agency requested the full battery—that would 

be the clinical interview plus administration of an IQ test—it 

would have been equivalent to what it would have taken for Mr. 

Conn’s patients, because Mr. Conn’s—— 

Senator COBURN. OK. And that was how much time? 

Mr. ADKINS [continuing]. Patients always got the full battery. 

Senator COBURN. And that was how much time? 

Mr. ADKINS. An hour and 15 minutes. An hour, hour and 15 minutes, 20 minutes. Something like that. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Did you perform a mental status 

exam on every patient that came into your office? 

Mr. ADKINS. The mental status exam? 

Senator COBURN. Did you perform a mental status exam on the 

patients that were referred to you both from Social Security and 

from Mr. Conn? 

Mr. ADKINS. The answer would be no because when you do the 

basic evaluation for the State of Kentucky, that included the mental status examination. It was the clinical interview plus the mental status examination. Lawyers always requested the full battery. 

Sometimes the State of Kentucky would request the full battery. 

When the full battery is administered, the administration of the IQ 

test goes above and beyond the mental status examination. So no. 

Senator COBURN. So you did not routinely perform a mental status examination on patients? 

Mr. ADKINS. I did routinely if they were the—— 

Senator COBURN. Full battery. 

Mr. ADKINS. No, for the full battery, that was the clinical interview plus administration of the IQ test. 

Senator COBURN. All right. 

Mr. ADKINS. The IQ test goes above and beyond the mental status eval, so there was no need to do the mental status examination. 

Senator COBURN. An IQ test demonstrates reliability or not reliability? 

Mr. ADKINS. Repeat, please? 

Senator COBURN. Does the IQ test that you administer—I guess 

it is a Wechsler? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. Does it demonstrate client or patient reliability? 

Mr. ADKINS. Reliability. No. 

Senator COBURN. So it does not demonstrate reliability. Is that 

your testimony? 

Mr. ADKINS. I am having a hard time understanding how you 

are—— 

Senator COBURN. Well, you filled out all these forms that said 

every patient that you saw for Eric Conn had poor reliability. I 

mean, you signed every one of those forms, and every one of them 

had ‘‘poor reliability.’’ 

Mr. ADKINS. I think there is a misunderstanding, sir, between reliability and validity. When the RFCs were filled out, but, even for 

the RFCs that I did do for other entities and prior to seeing Mr. 

Conn’s patients, reliability would be—at least the way I was understanding reliability is: Is this person going to be able to consistently be at work on time, consistently perform well at work, con-
54 

1See Exhibit No. 47, which appears in the Appendix on page 872. 

sistently be able to finish the day out? Are they going to call in a 

lot? 

Senator COBURN. OK, great. So if that is what that means, every 

patient you saw for Mr. Conn had poor reliability? Is that your testimony? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. I think anybody who has a significant mental health problem is going to have poor reliability. 

Senator COBURN. And every patient that you saw for Mr. Conn 

had mental health problems? 

Mr. ADKINS. Every single—— 

Senator COBURN. You did not find one that did not? 

Mr. ADKINS. Every single one? I cannot say. But I will honestly 

say that the vast majority of them, yes, I did—in my opinion, they 

were—— 

Senator COBURN. How do you explain that on multiple occasions 

you would give one report to the Social Security Administration of 

a patient’s condition and give an opposite report to Mr. Conn each 

on the same patient? 

Mr. ADKINS. I did not know that that ever happened. 

Senator COBURN. Well, we are going to demonstrate that it did. 

It did on multiple occasions. As a matter of fact, we had that testimony here in this first panel, that they noticed that you would get 

one report that would say one thing and one report that would say 

another. 

Mr. ADKINS. OK. 

Senator COBURN. Did you perform a symptom validity test on 

any of these patients like an MMPI? 

Mr. ADKINS. When I first started out in practice, I would indeed 

do those. But there was at one point I was doing those with every 

single patient, and in discourse with the Department of Disability 

Determination, I was told that those were not necessary for the—— 

Senator COBURN. Do you remember what time you were told 

that, what year you were told that? 

Mr. ADKINS. What year I was told that? 

Senator COBURN. Yes. 

Mr. ADKINS. Well—— 

Senator COBURN. You do not recall when that became not a requirement? 

Mr. ADKINS. Exactly. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you. 

If you would, Dr. Adkins, turn to Exhibit 471, the last two medical opinions in Exhibit 47. 

Mr. ADKINS. OK. Do you want the last two? 

Senator COBURN. Yes. 

Mr. ADKINS. Would that be Adkins Number 1? 

Senator COBURN. Is this document typical of the medical forms 

you completed for Mr. Conn’s clients. 

Mr. ADKINS. Can I have just a second to look through it, please? 

Senator COBURN. Sure. [Pause.] 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. 

Mr. ADKINS. It appears to be. 
55 

Senator COBURN. In the background section of each of those reports, a typical patient, is this the information included in the section of the report provided by the claimant? 

Mr. ADKINS. I am sorry. 

Senator COBURN. Go to the background section in your report. 

Mr. ADKINS. Are you talking about the portion dated September 

1, 2010? 

Senator COBURN. Yes. 

Mr. ADKINS. OK. Now, what was your question, sir? 

Senator COBURN. Is this information routinely provided by the 

claimant? 

Mr. ADKINS. Routinely provided by the claimant. 

Senator COBURN. In other words, where did you get the information? 

Mr. ADKINS. OK. Where did I get this information? 

Senator COBURN. Yes. 

Mr. ADKINS. From Eric Conn’s office. 

Senator COBURN. So you did not get it from the claimant? 

Mr. ADKINS. Well, let me check back here. 

There is nothing showing in the actual body of the report. I did 

not document the actual date of onset. 

Senator COBURN. Well, I am not as concerned about onset. I am 

asking—you put the background information in this report, and I 

am asking the origin of it. Did it come from the claimant or did 

it come from Mr. Conn? 

Mr. ADKINS. This piece of paper came from Mr. Conn’s office. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Now, please review the section of the 

exam titled ‘‘Summary and Conclusions.’’ Go on over. 

Mr. ADKINS. OK. I am there. 

Senator COBURN. All right. I would note, first of all, that you told 

Committee investigators on the first background information that 

it came from the claimant, not Mr. Conn. Now, in this section, the 

end of the report is reserved for your own conclusion, I believe. 

Does this represent your conclusions? 

Mr. ADKINS. The summary and conclusions on—— 

Senator COBURN. Yes. 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, it says page 7. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Now, please look at the summary section, and let me ask you the question again. The information in the 

background section came from Mr. Conn. 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. And if you look at the summary section, it seems to be identical to the background section. 

Mr. ADKINS. It seems to be identical. 

Senator COBURN. As a matter of fact, in this particular one, the 

information in both sections is word for word identical. So that 

your summary matches exactly the information, according to your 

testimony, that you got from Mr. Conn. 

Mr. ADKINS. Wait a minute. I think there is some misunderstanding here. When you say the background section, I am looking 

at a document that says, ‘‘To Whom It May Concern: It is my medical opinion’’—blanked out—‘‘medical conditions and limitations.’’ Is 

that correct? Is that what we are referring to? 
56 

Senator COBURN. No. Go back to the first question I asked you 

on the background section. I asked you where that information 

came from in the background. 

Mr. ADKINS. Oh. I apologize. I was looking at something else 

completely. When you said the background section, I thought 

you—— 

Senator COBURN. That is the first thing that you looked at, the 

first thing I had you look at. 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, the first thing I looked at was this, I believe. 

When you said background, I thought you meant whatever was 

after—— 

Senator COBURN. No. It says ‘‘Background Section.’’ 

Mr. ADKINS. Oh, OK. Background information, OK. 

Senator COBURN. And who gave you that information, Mr. Conn 

or the claimant? 

Mr. ADKINS. The claimant gave me that information. 

Senator COBURN. All right. 

Mr. ADKINS. OK. I am sorry. 

Senator COBURN. So now look at the summary section, and it 

seems that the summary section is exactly the same as the background. 

Mr. ADKINS. Oh, OK. Well—— 

Senator COBURN. Why is that? 

Mr. ADKINS. Because it was cut and pasted. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Why is it cut and pasted? 

Mr. ADKINS. Well, because when the report was typed, the summary and conclusions basically said the same thing as the background information said. It was cut and pasted from my own words 

that the claimant—based on information that the claimant had 

given to me, sir. 

Senator COBURN. But this is a medical conclusion. Would you 

agree with that? 

Mr. ADKINS. It is a psychological conclusion. I do not know if it 

is a medical—— 

Senator COBURN. Well, that is part of medicine, as far as I am 

concerned. I think you think so, too, don’t you? Psychological aspect 

is a part of medicine. 

Mr. ADKINS. They interlap—— 

Senator COBURN. I mean, we are all trained to do mental status 

exams, treat psychiatric diseases. 

Mr. ADKINS. They interlap. I think that psychiatry would be 

more of a medical profession. 

Senator COBURN. Do you think it is appropriate as a medical professional to copy a claimant’s subjective allegations word for word 

and pass it off as your own medical conclusions? 

Mr. ADKINS. Oh, I see what you are getting at. This summary 

and conclusions section is—well, basically it is exactly what it says 

it is. It was a spot for me to summarize if somebody wanted to go 

and just get a quick lowdown of this report, that they could go 

straight to this section, and in the course of—— 

Senator COBURN. So you found no objective findings that were 

different than the subjective complaints that were given to you by 

the claimant? 

Mr. ADKINS. There is not—— 
57 

1See Exhibit No. 47, which appears in the Appendix on page 872. 

Senator COBURN. Well, let me ask another question. On page 9 

of this opinion, you diagnose the claimant with a deteriorating disk 

in his back and neck. 

Mr. ADKINS. OK. Page 9? Yes, that was reported to me by the 

patient. 

Senator COBURN. All right. So your medical conclusion is the patient subjective information. You did not test it, you did not look 

at a computed tomography (CT scan) or a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to say that this is confirmed and, therefore, I am going 

to put it in the diagnosis. It is all subjective going to an objective 

conclusion. Is that correct? 

Mr. ADKINS. That would be correct, but I think that is pretty 

much standard operating procedure in my field. 

Senator COBURN. All right. 

Mr. ADKINS. If a patient comes to me and says, you know, ‘‘Dr. 

Adkins, I’’—he is coming to me primarily for psychological issues. 

If he tells me along the way, ‘‘And I have heart conditions,’’ actually at that time I would have included heart conditions or—— 

Senator COBURN. I understand. 

Mr. ADKINS. OK. 

Senator COBURN. All right. On this opinion, you found the claimant to have an IQ of 61? 

Mr. ADKINS. Mm-hmm. 

Senator COBURN. Is that correct? 

Mr. ADKINS. Let me take a look. [Pause.] 

Full-scale IQ score, 61, yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. OK. And what is average? 

Mr. ADKINS. Average IQ would run from like 80 to 120. 

Senator COBURN. All right. And so how is it that you also found 

that this claimant with an IQ of 61, two standard deviations below 

low normal, had no problem managing his money? 

Mr. ADKINS. Well, the intelligence scale, sir, they are based on 

a lot of—— 

Senator COBURN. I understand that. Did you ask him any questions about handling money in your interview with him? 

Mr. ADKINS. Not in particular, no. 

Senator COBURN. So how would you know if he had any problems 

handling his money if you did not ask? 

Mr. ADKINS. Based on his presentation, based on his conversation, based on his IQ scores. An IQ score of 61 does not necessarily 

indicate that—— 

Senator COBURN. I did not say that. I asked you, did you ask him 

any questions specifically relating to your assumption that he could 

handle money? 

Mr. ADKINS. No, sir. 

Senator COBURN. And you said no. 

Mr. ADKINS. No, sir. 

Senator COBURN. On Exhibit 47,1 now look at page 11 of this 

same document. Exhibit 47, page 11. 

Mr. ADKINS. OK. This is the document that says September 1, 

2010, at the top of it? 

Senator COBURN. Yes, sir. 
58 

Mr. ADKINS. OK. That is the one I was looking at earlier when 

I was confused. 

Senator COBURN. The document is a very short signed statement 

in which you assert, without any explanation, that the claimant’s 

medical conditions and limitations would not be significantly different as of February 15, 2005. 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. So you are asserting that his status is totally 

unchanged from 2005. 

Mr. ADKINS. I did sign to that. 

Senator COBURN. Yes. And did you happen to encounter this patient in 2005? 

Mr. ADKINS. No, sir. 

Senator COBURN. So this was your first interface with this patient? 

Mr. ADKINS. The date of the examination is stated as September 

1, 2010. That would have been the—— 

Senator COBURN. All right. Do you have any idea why you would 

assert that—putting this into a document like this? Were you 

asked to put this into the document? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir, I—— 

Senator COBURN. And who asked you to put that into the document? 

Mr. ADKINS. Somebody from Eric Conn’s office. 

Senator COBURN. Do you know who? 

Mr. ADKINS. I do not know the particular person, sir. 

Senator COBURN. And was that before you saw the patient or 

after you saw the patient? 

Mr. ADKINS. It would have been after I saw the patient. 

Senator COBURN. It was after you saw the patient? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. All right. And you have never seen this patient 

before, to your knowledge? 

Mr. ADKINS. Not to my knowledge. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Now turn to page 12 of this same document. 

Mr. ADKINS. That would be the RFC form, correct? 

Senator COBURN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ADKINS. OK, sir. 

Senator COBURN. Did Mr. Conn’s firm provide this to you? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. When the form was provided to you by Mr. 

Conn’s firm, were the X’s that appear in the boxes of Sections 1, 

2, and 3 already filled out? 

Mr. ADKINS. I am going to say that I am quite sure that they 

were. 

Senator COBURN. All right. And then you were asked to sign 

those? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Why did you not fill out the entire 

form yourself? 

Mr. ADKINS. Because I did not know, No. 1, that this was to be 

completed only by the professional who did this. I had no idea the 

role that this little form played in the determination process. 
59 

Senator COBURN. Do you routinely fill out these forms for other 

lawyers that you do psychological evaluations for? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. And do they ever send them to you pre-filled 

out? 

Mr. ADKINS. No, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. So you did not know that this was 

part of the evaluation process? 

Mr. ADKINS. They look different from each attorney that they 

came from. Let us see. Mr. Conn here was one, two, three pages 

long. Some of them were only one page long. It seems like they 

asked primarily the same questions, but they were in different formats, different layouts, and none of them said anywhere, this is an 

official U.S. Government form, this is going to be used for this. I 

did not know at that time that it was used in the actual decisionmaking process. 

Senator COBURN. You were not aware that a medical assessment 

of ability to do work-related activities would be used in evaluating 

somebody’s disability? 

Mr. ADKINS. No, sir, I was not aware of that at that time. I 

thought they were used in-office, in-house, might be a better way 

to say. 

Senator COBURN. On all the forms we have reviewed that you 

signed, you checked, ‘‘The claimant demonstrated poor reliability.’’ 

Every one that Mr. Conn sent you demonstrated poor reliability? 

Every patient that you saw from Mr. Conn demonstrated poor reliability? 

Mr. ADKINS. I think that if the patient was diagnosed with a significant mental—— 

Senator COBURN. Well, you did not fill out the form that said it. 

You just admitted that you signed the form and you did not fill it 

out. 

Mr. ADKINS. Right. 

Senator COBURN. So are the forms right or wrong? Are all these 

forms right? You did not fill them out. You just signed them. Are 

they right or wrong? 

Mr. ADKINS. There are some that could be better, in retro—— 

Senator COBURN. Are they right or are they wrong? You did not 

fill them out, so I am not holding you responsible for filling them 

out. I am asking: you signed them, but are they right or are they 

wrong? 

Mr. ADKINS. Some of them are right and some of them are 

wrong. 

Senator COBURN. With your signature on them? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. I cannot give you a broad, sweeping answer. 

Senator COBURN. Given that the form was already completed 

when you received it, you did not go through to see if the forms 

actually reflected your exam. Is that correct? 

Mr. ADKINS. There were—— 

Senator COBURN. I am talking about these forms. 

Mr. ADKINS. These RFC forms. 

Senator COBURN. Yes. You did not go through the forms to see 

if they actually reflected your examination. 
60 

1See Exhibit No. 47, which appears in the Appendix on page 872. 

Mr. ADKINS. I did go through them. I never saw anything that 

jumped out at me as something that I would disagree with. 

Senator COBURN. So you just told me that some were right and 

some were wrong, and now you are telling me that not any of them 

are anything that you would disagree with. 

Mr. ADKINS. No. What I am telling you is that I did not know 

the significance of these forms when I was signing them. If I had 

known the significance of them, I would have been more diligent 

in comparing them to my reports. 

Senator COBURN. But your testimony is no other lawyer sent you 

a pre-filled-out form? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Given that the form was already completed when you received it—I have covered that. 

We have testimony to the Committee that you did not look at the 

forms at all, that you just signed them and took the check, because 

they were brought to you when you were paid. Is that correct or 

not? 

Mr. ADKINS. That is not correct. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you. 

Besides the mental assessment form that we saw in Exhibit 47,1

the Committee reviewed 31 additional psychological evaluations 

that you performed for Mr. Conn between July 2007 and 2010. The 

mental assessment form that you filled out—or signed—you did not 

fill out—on Exhibit 47 was identical in all 31. 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir, I understand that. 

Senator COBURN. Do you think there is a problem with that? 

Mr. ADKINS. In retrospect, yes. 

Senator COBURN. All right. This particular form had 15 questions 

with 5 answers each. Do you think it is likely that 31 people would 

end up with a form filled out the exact same way? I am not blaming you for not noticing how they were filled out. I am not trying 

to go there. I am just saying, do you think it is likely that 31 would 

end up filled out exactly the same way? 

Mr. ADKINS. With this population—— 

Senator COBURN. Exactly the same way. 

Mr. ADKINS. Exactly the same way. With this population, yes, 

sir, I could see that happening. 

Senator COBURN. That 31 out of 31 people sent to you would 

have exactly the same on 75 different parameters? 

Mr. ADKINS. The way the rating is set up, unlimited, good, fair, 

poor, none—— 

Senator COBURN. But you did not fill these out. 

Mr. ADKINS. True. 

Senator COBURN. All right. You have testified to that. Let us go 

to page 1 of the document on Exhibit 47. This is on a child 8 years 

old at the time of his assessment in 2007. Do you use a different 

approach when you examine a child instead of an adult? Is there 

a difference in your approach? 

Mr. ADKINS. The difference in my approach would have been observing the child while he or she was in my office and talking with 

the mother, getting information from her. 
61 

Senator COBURN. All right. You gave a possible diagnosis or a 

rule-out diagnosis of possible oppositional deficit disorder. 

Mr. ADKINS. That is a typo. That should say ‘‘oppositional defiant 

disorder.’’ 

Senator COBURN. Yes. Should this child have been tested for this 

before making this conclusion? Or was your assessment that it was 

probably likely? 

Mr. ADKINS. When I make a rule-out—or when a rule-out diagnosis is made, you are not saying the child has this. You are saying 

there is a likely—or there is a possibility that the child has it and, 

possibly more testing, more formalized testing should be done. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Would you please turn to page 5, 

which is the beginning of the medical assessment of ability to do 

work-related activities, mental form provided to you by Mr. Conn’s 

employees. 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. This is identical to the forms you used and 

signed for adults? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. Do you think this form is appropriate for evaluating children? 

Mr. ADKINS. Well, do I think it now or did I think it then? 

Senator COBURN. Answer both. 

Mr. ADKINS. OK. Thank you for letting me. Now, no. You have 

to understand, like I have told you before, I had no idea of the significance of these forms, what they were used for. OK? Then, I 

thought nothing of it. I did not think that it was irregular, because 

I thought that the attorney who would be reviewing the forms— 

like I said, I thought these were used in-house. I thought that a 

paralegal or one of Mr. Conn’s assistants filled these out and they 

were just for his use. 

Senator COBURN. You did not fill the X’s out on this form, right? 

Mr. ADKINS. Correct. 

Senator COBURN. You did not. Does it strike you as strange that 

a child 8 years of age would have poor ability to deal with work 

stresses? 

Mr. ADKINS. The reason—— 

Senator COBURN. Did he have a job? 

Mr. ADKINS. No, of course he did not. The reason that I went 

along with something like this was because, like I said, I thought 

the attorney was in his office, just strictly him seeing this form, nobody else, and that he would understand, for example, follow work 

rules—what was the one you just said? Interact with supervisors. 

I thought it was understood that the attorney would think, well, 

that means he is talking about teachers as opposed to a work supervisor. 

Senator COBURN. Do they have a form for children? Does Social 

Security evaluate children’s mental capacity different than they assess those of adults? 

Mr. ADKINS. At that time I probably would not have known. 

Senator COBURN. OK. 

Mr. ADKINS. I do now, just from reading the report of Mr. 

Dockham. 
62 

Senator COBURN. I will just summarize your testimony and get 

you to say yes or no, if you would. You did not fill out these forms. 

Mr. ADKINS. Correct. 

Senator COBURN. On any of the cases. 

Mr. ADKINS. I did before—— 

Senator COBURN. On Mr. Conn’s, these cases. 

Mr. ADKINS. There was a time that I did fill them out, handwritten. 

Senator COBURN. And when did you stop? 

Mr. ADKINS. I cannot tell you an exact date. It was after I quit 

working private practice full-time and made private practice more 

of a sideline. 

Senator COBURN. OK. And you signed the forms really without 

evaluating them, what was in them. 

Mr. ADKINS. Without evaluating the forms? 

Senator COBURN. Yes. I know you evaluated the patients. 

Mr. ADKINS. The short answer would be yes. 

Senator COBURN. All right. And when were these forms presented to you? 

Mr. ADKINS. These forms were usually presented to me—after 

the evaluation was done, one of Mr. Conn’s employees would bring 

these to me, along with the report, and I would sign them after—— 

Senator COBURN. After your reports were finished? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you. I have no other questions. 

Chairman CARPER [presiding]. Thank you, Dr. Coburn. 

Senator Levin, and then I am going to come to Senator 

Heitkamp. 

Senator LEVIN. I am sorry that I missed the previous questions, 

but I just want to get one thing clear, although it may have already 

been asked. 

Dr. Adkins, you were given forms, and on these forms you, after 

an examination, said that the client was disabled mentally. You did 

your own examination. 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. But on this form, there was a lot of information 

that backed up your diagnosis. Is that correct? 

Mr. ADKINS. That backed up my diagnosis? 

Senator LEVIN. Your conclusion. 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. There are a bunch of pages here on most of these 

forms, right? 

Mr. ADKINS. There is three, I think, for the average one, or for 

the ones that I have looked at today. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. Three pages that presumably gave support 

for the conclusion. Is that correct? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. Did you ever change any of those three pages? 

Mr. ADKINS. Could you elaborate just a little bit? 

Senator LEVIN. Well, there are three pages on the average, right? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. To support the conclusion. 

Mr. ADKINS. OK. Did I ever change—— 

Senator LEVIN. Yes. 
63 

Mr. ADKINS [continuing]. Anything on these three pages? 

Senator LEVIN. Right. 

Mr. ADKINS. Not that I can remember, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. So how many different clients or patients did you 

look at as you did an evaluation? 

Mr. ADKINS. How many different patients? 

Senator LEVIN. Yes, from this office, Mr. Conn’s office. How many 

of his clients did you do mental evaluations on? About. 

Mr. ADKINS. During that time, the time in question, I think it 

is 2007 or 2006 to 2011? 

Senator LEVIN. Yes. 

Mr. ADKINS. I have no idea, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. Well, how many hundreds? 

Mr. ADKINS. How many hundreds of people did I see? 

Senator LEVIN. Yes. 

Mr. ADKINS. Let us take a look—— 

Senator LEVIN. From the Conn office. 

Mr. ADKINS. Just for the Conn office? 

Senator LEVIN. Yes. 

Mr. ADKINS. I think I had figured it out roughly on a—give me 

just a second, please. [Pause.] 

Here we go. On the average, what I have it boiled down to is 

about two a week. 

Senator LEVIN. How many total? You have about 5 years there. 

Mr. ADKINS. It would be a hundred and—let’s see. 

Senator LEVIN. You said five a week for about 250 weeks, so that 

is about 1,200, something like that? 

Mr. ADKINS. No. If you can give me a second, I can do the math 

on it and give you a rough figure. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. We will give you a second to do the math. 

Mr. ADKINS. Thank you. [Pause.] 

That comes out to 568, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. All right. Now, did you ever change anything that 

was presented to you? 

Mr. ADKINS. No, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. 558 examinations. 

Mr. ADKINS. 568, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. I did not mean to short-change you. 568 examinations, you never changed anything on those 568 forms? 

Mr. ADKINS. No, sir. Not that I can remember. I cannot remember one time ever changing them. I said I was here today to tell 

you the truth. 

Senator LEVIN. That is an extraordinary acknowledgment. Truthful, but it is an extraordinary acknowledgment if you did not 

change one word of an analysis that you are depending on for—or 

you are signing, put it that way, you are signing your name to. 

Mr. ADKINS. The reason that that was—— 

Senator LEVIN. Let me ask a different question. 568, how many 

did you find were not disabled? 

Mr. ADKINS. I do not know. I am sure the vast majority of them 

I found that they had significant depression issues or anxiety 

issues or pain issues, what have you. 

Senator LEVIN. Well, of the 568 examinations, how many, about? 

We can check it. Were there 10? 
64 

Mr. ADKINS. Probably not even 10. 

Senator LEVIN. Were there five? 

Mr. ADKINS. Probably not five. Probably zero. 

Senator LEVIN. Zero. I have no further questions. I am done. 

Chairman CARPER. Thanks, Senator Levin. 

Senator Heitkamp, and then Senator McCain. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Again, I am sorry I was not here for your testimony, but reviewing these documents, each one of these threepage documents that you signed your name to, you are now saying 

you did not prepare those documents? 

Mr. ADKINS. Correct, ma’am. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I am not as familiar with ethical standards 

for people in your profession, but how does this square with ethical 

standards in your profession that you would just simply rubberstamp an analysis that somebody else did without adequately reviewing their current condition? 

Mr. ADKINS. At the time that I signed—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. No. I just want to know, in your professional 

status, what are the standards of your profession in terms of the 

ethical obligations that you had here. 

Mr. ADKINS. What are the ethical standards? It was a mistake 

to do it. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Was it unethical to do it? 

Mr. ADKINS. Looking back on it, knowing now what they were 

for, yes. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Your testimony here, and correct me if I am 

wrong, is that you were not aware of what these were being used 

for. 

Mr. ADKINS. Correct, ma’am. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Do you really think that is something that 

has credibility here? 

Mr. ADKINS. I have to be honest—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. Is that really a credible claim? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, ma’am. At the time I did not know that these 

were going in front of administrative law judges and that decisions 

were being made based on these forms. 

Senator HEITKAMP. What did you think these forms were for? 

Mr. ADKINS. I thought these forms were used in-house at the attorney’s office. Like I said—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. But to form the basis for what? Why would 

the attorney be asking for these? Were you aware—— 

Mr. ADKINS. I thought the attorney just kind of looked at them 

and used them as a quick summary, like a—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. No. Why do you think the attorney would 

even be concerned about these patients and their current mental 

or physical capabilities? When an attorney asked you for an evaluation and to sign your name on these documents, what did you think 

they were going to be used for? 

Mr. ADKINS. I thought the report was going to be—the actual 

four-or five-page report, I thought that was actually going to be put 

in front of a judge and that that was going to be looked at and read 

in its entirety. These documents, the RFCs, I thought did not leave 

the attorney’s office. I thought they were used by him—— 
65 

Senator HEITKAMP. So it was OK to just sign your name on to 

them without doing the ethical—doing the appropriate investigation, so it was OK as long as they were in the attorney’s office, but 

not OK if they were going to be used in a court of law or an administrative proceeding. Is that what you are saying? 

Mr. ADKINS. That is what I thought at that time. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Do you still think that? 

Mr. ADKINS. Oh, no, ma’am. Not now. 

Senator HEITKAMP. This is just—it is hard to believe that you 

credibly did not believe that these would form the basis for some 

kind of legal proceeding. If a lawyer asked you to do that kind of— 

it’s kind of hard, isn’t it? If you are sitting where I am sitting, 

wouldn’t you think? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, from outside looking in, yes, ma’am. But I testified earlier at the time I was very young in practice. I did not really—and Mr. Conn’s practice was very well known. It was well 

known in the area. 

Senator HEITKAMP. It was well known that he did disability 

claims, correct? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, very well known that he was a very successful 

attorney. So when these were brought to me and folks said, ‘‘Oh, 

yes, hey, do you care to sign these? ’’ it never dawned on me that 

there was anything less than legitimate about it because of the 

fact, you know—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. But yet you are saying here that your ethical 

standards would have told you not to do this, never mind the legal 

standards. I can understand and appreciate where that might be 

sometimes confusing to people who do not deal with the law on a 

regular basis. But ethically, the training that you received would 

suggest that you should not just rubber-stamp an evaluation that 

someone else did. 

Mr. ADKINS. At that time it did not seem unethical to me. 

Senator HEITKAMP. OK. Thank you. My time is up. 

Mr. ADKINS. That is my testimony. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator Heitkamp, thanks. Senator McCain. 

Senator MCCAIN. Thank you. 

Mr. Adkins, I understand that there was a place actually in Mr. 

Conn’s law firm where some of this examination was done. Were 

you ever there? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir, for a very short time, for maybe 2 months, 

maybe less than 2 months. 

Senator MCCAIN. Months? 

Mr. ADKINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator MCCAIN. Dr. Ammisetty, were you there? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Never, sir. He requested me to come and do 

physicals in his office, and I said no because—— 

Senator MCCAIN. You said no? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. I said no. That is my professional pride. So—— 

Senator MCCAIN. But, Mr. Adkins, you did some of this investigating right there in Mr. Conn’s office. That in itself creates an 

appearance problem. Did he ever—what was your compensation for 

that? 

Mr. ADKINS. Well, the compensation was the standard fee that 

we discussed a few minutes ago. It was $350, Senator. 
66 

Senator MCCAIN. And how long would you examine these people? 

Mr. ADKINS. An hour, hour and 15 minutes. Something like that 

it would take. 

Senator MCCAIN. And what was the compensation, standard 

compensation per patient? 

Mr. ADKINS. $350. 

Senator MCCAIN. Did you know Judge Daugherty? 

Mr. ADKINS. No, sir. 

Senator MCCAIN. You did not know him or Judge Andrus? 

Mr. ADKINS. No, sir. 

Senator MCCAIN. Never appeared before them? 

Mr. ADKINS. No, sir. 

Senator MCCAIN. Dr. Ammisetty, did you? 

Dr. AMMISETTY. That judge I did not know personally, but I told 

the investigators one time, and while I was doing my paperwork 

in my office, Ms. Slone asked Jessica—or somebody came, some 

judge came toward—somebody came from Huntington you want to 

see. At 9 o’clock they called me, and then I did not go. Around 

lunchtime, they again—the staff came to me so they took me to 

their office. The judge and Eric C. Conn and David Hicks, they 

both at the table, they are eating Chinese food. They introduced 

me. I was so busy with my practice, I do not want to say no to him, 

so I went there. The office staff was there, whoever the girl—I still 

remember, the girl next to me in the—standing, and she was serving the food for the three of them. Then the judge asked me, 

‘‘Where do you came from? ’’ I told them I came from India. Then 

his assistant, David Hicks, and judge, they are talking about they 

love Indian food. A few minutes conversation, and then I said I am 

leaving, I have a practice. All the time, 10 minutes, the girl was 

standing there, and then I left. But I do not remember the judge 

is Daugherty or Judge Gitlow. I do not know, sir. But—— 

Senator MCCAIN. OK. Dr. Adkins, if you were getting $350 per 

patient and you spent an hour with each one, you did pretty well 

for an 8-hour day? 

Mr. ADKINS. No. I would not see eight patients a day, sir. 

Senator MCCAIN. Well, he was referring as many as 35 per 

tranche of them, so I do not know who else was doing the examining. How many other doctors do you know were doing these examinations in Mr. Conn’s law offices? 

Mr. ADKINS. To my understanding, Dr. Huffnagle did. 

Senator MCCAIN. All right. Mr. Chairman, I have no additional 

questions. 

Chairman CARPER. Let me change focus just a little bit before we 

excuse this panel. In your written testimony, I believe that both of 

you suggested some ways in which the Social Security disability 

program could operate more effectively with better oversight over 

the medical evidence that is presented, and I just want each of you 

to give us your single best idea, your single best recommendation 

to address this program so that it might be run more effectively 

with better oversight over the medical evidence that is presented. 

Dr. Ammisetty, I am going to ask you to go first. Give us your 

best idea. 

Dr. AMMISETTY. As a physician, I have been here many years, 

and I do not have any legal-medical problems. In the medical 
67 

school, residency fellowship, I spent a lot of time. They never 

taught about disability evaluation. And all the disability evaluation 

we learned during the practice. That is where physicians make 

mistakes. And the physician community and the legal community 

are completely different. We do not know what is going in the 

court. We do not know what process they are going on, what the 

RFC forms. 

My impression, my recommendation, the physicians who want to 

do disability evaluation, they should register in the registry, and 

they should go through some mandatory continuous medical education, and especially disability. That is what is happening in other 

branches of Social Security, like a black lung evaluation. I do pulmonary evaluations, and for the last 20 years, I went to West Virginia, Princeton, Miners Association conferences. There we meet 

the ALJs, law judges, and miners, and the Federal Government 

employee directors and physician community. They all sit together 

and discuss what is the legal problem, what is going on, and that 

brings a lot of input, and where we are going wrong, where we 

should go. And miners also come and complain what their problems 

are. That is a big beneficial for whoever is evaluating the Social Security disability. 

Chairman CARPER. Dr. Adkins, your best idea. 

Mr. ADKINS. It is hard for me to boil it down—— 

Chairman CARPER. Go ahead and turn your mic on, please. 

Mr. ADKINS. My apologies. It is hard to boil it down to one, sir. 

Can I give two or three? 

Chairman CARPER. You can give two, but be fairly brief. 

Mr. ADKINS. The first, I think I agree with Dr. Ammisetty, education. Anybody looking back on it, anybody who is going to be performing consultative examinations, I would highly recommend that 

they be educated regarding the process from beginning to end, and 

that that education be continued possibly in the form of continuing 

education (CEs). 

The second one would be review by government entities of the 

forms and documents that are turned in on a regular basis. This 

went on for 5 years, 2006 to 2011. If I had known early in the process, I certainly would have been glad to have stopped and apologized and said this will not happen anymore. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Dr. Coburn has more questions. 

Senator COBURN. I just have one other question for Dr. Adkins. 

Did at any time the Social Security system, when they asked you 

to evaluate a patient, send you an RFC form pre-filled out? 

Mr. ADKINS. Very rarely. 

Senator COBURN. Pre-filled out? 

Mr. ADKINS. Oh, I am sorry. No, no. No, sir, not pre-filled out. 

Senator COBURN. Did they ever send you one that was pre-filled? 

Mr. ADKINS. No, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Any more questions from our Senators? [No 

response.] 

OK. Thank you, Governor Manchin, for joining us. And with 

that, this panel is excused. Thank you for joining us today. 

Dr. AMMISETTY. Thank you for giving me the time. Thank you. 
68 

Chairman CARPER. You bet. And we are going to take just a very 

short break, a short intermission, and we will be right back. [Recess.] 

I would like now to invite our third panel of witnesses to the witness table for this evening’s hearing. I will just briefly introduce 

each of you. 

Eric Conn, attorney and owner of The Conn Law Firm. Mr. 

Conn, welcome. Thank you for joining us. 

Judge David Daugherty, a former administrative law judge with 

the U.S. Social Security Administration. 

And Judge Charlie Andrus, an administrative law judge at the 

U.S. Social Security Administration, appearing in his personal capacity. 

Judge Daugherty, are you in the room? [No response.] 

I am told by our staff that Judge Daugherty is believed to have 

left the room about 2 hours ago and has not returned. 

Our practice in investigative hearings is to—— [Pause.] 

Before I ask our witnesses to stand and take an oath to testify, 

I would note that a subpoena has been served, was served to Judge 

Daugherty, and that it was properly served and we will be in consultation to decide what further steps to take. 

With that having been said, I am going to ask our witnesses, Mr. 

Conn and Judge Andrus, to stand and ask you to raise your right 

hand. Gentlemen, do you swear that the testimony you will give before this Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 

but the truth, so help you, God? 

Mr. CONN. I do. 

Judge ANDRUS. I do. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. 

Mr. Conn, do you have any opening remarks you would like to 

give, please? 

TESTIMONY OF ERIC C. CONN, ATTORNEY AND OWNER, THE 

CONN LAW FIRM 

Mr. CONN. No, sir, I do not. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Do you have any corrections to the 

statement of facts laid out in Dr. Coburn’s opening statement or to 

the facts included in the staff report released by the Committee 

today? 

Mr. CONN. Mr. Chairman and Members of the honorable Committee, my lawyer, Abbe Lowell, sent a letter on October 7 explaining the reasons that I am not going to testify today, and pursuant 

to that letter, I respectfully assert my constitutional right not to 

testify here today, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. Let me just followup with that, Mr. Conn. Is 

it your intention to assert your Fifth Amendment right in response 

to any question that might be directed to you by the Committee 

today? 

Mr. CONN. It is, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. Well, given the fact that you intend to assert 

a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to all questions 

asked of you by this Committee, you are excused. 

Mr. CONN. Thank you, sir. [Pause.] 
69 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Andrus appears in the Appendix on page 122. 

Chairman CARPER. Judge Andrus, you are recognized. Welcome. 

Please proceed with your statement. 

TESTIMONY OF CHARLIE P. ANDRUS,1 ADMINISTRATIVE LAW 

JUDGE, U.S. SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION (APPEARING IN A PERSONAL CAPACITY) 

Judge ANDRUS. Chairman Carper and Ranking Member Coburn, 

I just wish to state at the outset that I am here in a personal and 

not official capacity. The views expressed in my testimony are 

mine, expressed in my personal capacity as a private citizen. In 

this testimony I do not represent the views of the Social Security 

Administration or the U.S. Government. I am not acting as an 

agent or representative of the Social Security Administration or the 

U.S. Government in this activity. There is no expressed or implied 

endorsement of my views or activities either by the Social Security 

Administration or the U.S. Government. And I was asked to make 

that position clear to you before I testified. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Please proceed. 

Judge ANDRUS. I have heard a lot of testimony here today about 

my office, and I would like to start by explaining a little bit how 

we changed our processes of handling cases. 

We, the Social Security Administration, recently adopted an electronic business process to try and create a unified system for handling cases as they came up from the Social Security district offices. Huntington handles appeals from the Huntington, West Virginia, office; Prestonsburg, Kentucky; Pikeville, Kentucky; and Ashland, Kentucky. So most of our work is actually done with Kentucky cases. 

There was some discussion about scheduling Mr. Conn’s cases 

and why we did it the way we did. After Mr. Conn’s practice grew 

to the point it took up quite a bit of our dockets, it became hard 

to schedule. He was a solo practitioner, and so we could only schedule the cases when he was available. And this started to age his 

cases more than cases assigned to other lawyers, that other lawyers represented people. 

So what we decided to do—and I sent this up to my regional office and got permission to do it—— 

Chairman CARPER. Where is your regional office? 

Judge ANDRUS. In Philadelphia, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Judge ANDRUS. And at that time Judge Cristaudo was the regional chief judge. He later became the national chief judge and is 

still with the agency, I believe, as general counsel in Boston. 

Normally what we would do is when we saw that a judge had 

a case, a docket of cases scheduled, we would bring from a case of 

what is called ‘‘worked-up cases,’’ cases that had been exhibitized, 

they had been put into proper order, and we would pull the oldest 

from that list. That list was generated from master docket, pulling 

the oldest cases. What we found was that by assigning Mr. Conn’s 

cases as they came in, in rotation, to every judge, it evened this 

out. 
70 

There was concern expressed to me that Mr. Conn would be 

available for certain weeks and not available at others, and I felt 

to remove the possibility of him trying to be available when certain 

judges were available and not when others, I felt that if we assigned the same amount to everybody and kept them with everybody, then everyone would have about the same number of his 

cases. And that was approved, and that is what we did. 

Now, when we would schedule cases, particularly for our 

Prestonsburg dockets, we looked at the age of the cases, and in 

some weeks that I was down in Prestonsburg, Mr. Conn would 

have 21⁄2, 3 days of cases, which is roughly what his percentage of 

our cases down there would be. Sometimes I would go the entire 

week, and he would not have a case down there. And that is as it 

varies with the age of the other cases. We always tried to do the 

older cases first. 

Now, with regards to the on-the-records, when the Commissioner 

set forth a series of plans to try and reduce our backlog, one of 

them was to have judges review cases that were unpulled—in other 

words, not made ready for hearing, just raw cases that came up, 

so the pages may not be in order, the exhibits may not be in chronological order—to review those cases and see if there were any that 

could be done on the record with a view to getting the case to the 

claimant as soon as we can. 

You have heard a lot about pressure, and some of you have 

talked about the pressure that we are under, and I would ask you 

to consider this: The administrative law judges are the only ones 

that see the claimants on a regular basis. We see how they are feeling. We see how this affects them. And for me personally, the 

major pressure was to try and get that case done so that, whether 

it is an allowance or a denial, they would get a decision. 

So part of the process was on reviewing for on-the-records. This 

started back when we were still mainly a paper file system, and 

in conformity with that—I keep forgetting the word—process, I told 

all of the judges in the office that if any of them felt that they had 

the time, to go ahead and go to the master docket, the paper case 

in the master docket that had not been pulled yet, and they could 

review cases for on-the-record. And Judge Daugherty was the one 

who did this. 

Now, that is how that process started. One of the things that as 

the hearing office chief administrative law judge is that I carried 

the same workload as every other judge in the office, and so I had 

a full docket of my own cases to handle also. 

Now, Senator Coburn brought up some things about—and we 

talked about some things about what has happened. Shortly after 

the newspaper article was published, I stepped down as the chief 

judge. So I have no idea or no knowledge of what management had 

done after that time because I just was not included in that information. But Mr. Conn was one of three or four attorneys that 

worked with Judge Daugherty getting files to him and getting new 

evidence put in the files for him to review. I know the Committee 

and the investigation, which is very thorough, has primarily focused on that, but there were other attorneys who were submitting 

on-the-record decisions to Judge Daugherty also, besides Mr. Conn. 
71 

Now, the details of how Mr. Conn filled out the RFCs and so 

forth I had no idea existed until I read your report that you graciously furnished me a couple days ago. 

As far as the reassigning of cases is concerned, that was discussed. Before we went to the electronic system that we have now 

of electronic files and electronic case control, we had started with 

what has been referred to as CPMS, which is essentially an electronic control system for all our files as they move through the office. 

CPMS has gone through several iterations, with several changes 

to it. In the beginning, I could tell that a case file had been assigned or reassigned, but I could not tell by whom. I could tell that 

cases moved from one section to another, one status to another, but 

I could not tell who made those changes. 

So when it was brought to my attention by Mr. Hall and by 

Judge Gitlow that Judge Daugherty or someone had moved cases 

to Judge Daugherty that originally had been assigned to them, I 

went to Judge Daugherty, and I asked him if he had been reassigning cases, and he said that he had. And I asked him, ‘‘Did you 

know that these were already assigned? ’’ Because that was the 

program that we had set up, that they would be assigned to us 

from Mr. Conn and not reassigned. And he said, ‘‘Well, I did not 

know.’’ So I sent out another memo, an e-mail to the office staff. 

I believe that is one of them in the report. 

And I said, ‘‘Look, do not reassign these cases.’’ And I emphasized to Judge Daugherty, I said, ‘‘This has to be’’—‘‘when they are 

assigned to a judge, that is it.’’ He says, ‘‘All right. Fine. I understand.’’ 

Quite a bit later, again, Judge Gitlow came to me and I believe 

Judge Chwalibog came to me and said that they had found more. 

At this point I went to Judge Daugherty, and I said, ‘‘Why did you 

reassign these to you? ’’ He said, ‘‘I did not think they belonged to 

anybody.’’ And what had happened was, in the latest iteration of 

CPMS, I believe, they moved where they put that in the file. So he 

said, ‘‘I did not see it.’’ I said, ‘‘All right. Fine. We will take care 

of this. I do not want you to reassign anything. If you have one 

that you are going to review on the record, go to the supervisor, 

have the supervisor look at it, and they will reassign it if it is appropriate.’’ He agreed. 

And then right before the story in the Wall Street Journal, Judge 

Gitlow came to me again and said, ‘‘No, he is still doing it.’’ And 

at that time I asked him for a list, looked at it, and I talked to 

Judge Daugherty, and he said, ‘‘Oops. I must have done this.’’ 

So those were the steps that I took, reminding everybody not to 

reassign it, specifically telling Judge Daugherty not to reassign 

cases. 

But the main purpose from—— 

Chairman CARPER. Judge Andrus, I am going to have to ask you 

to wrap it up in about 2 minutes so we can begin our questions. 

Judge ANDRUS. Oh, OK. The main reason that I wanted to do 

that was to keep the age of the cases between Eric Conn’s very 

large docket and the cases represented by other individuals pretty 

much on the same level so that we would not age any cases. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 
72 

Let me start off by—again, thank you for coming, thank you for 

testifying. I want to ask you, are you married? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. Do you have any children? 

Judge ANDRUS. Two. 

Chairman CARPER. Do you have any daughters? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. I think most of us up here have children, 

and I think except maybe for me, we have daughters. One of the 

guiding principles in my life, I suspect in the life of most of the 

people in this room, is to treat other people the way we would want 

to be treated. 

As I understand it, you were the chief judge. 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. The person in charge, the leader of this operation in Huntington. And we have listened to the first panel of witnesses talk about the way they were treated for a number of years 

by those in charge, those in a position to do something about it. 

And I just want to ask you, how would you feel if your wife or your 

daughter were treated that way by their employer at their place of 

work? 

Judge ANDRUS. I would feel badly. But, Senator, I—— 

Chairman CARPER. Would you do anything about it? 

Judge ANDRUS. I would find out if there were two sides to the 

story. 

Chairman CARPER. What is their motivation to risk a lot to come 

here and really to be involved—to agree to cooperate with the Inspector General? What is their motivation? 

Judge ANDRUS. On the—— 

Chairman CARPER. How do you square your behavior with the 

Golden Rule, treat other people—— 

Judge ANDRUS. I do not—— 

Chairman CARPER. How does that square—— 

Judge ANDRUS. I failed in a very large way on that. 

Chairman CARPER. I am sorry? 

Judge ANDRUS. I said I failed in a very large way on that. I do 

not agree with the statements made by Ms. Carver about the retaliation. As I said, I do not know what has been going on since 2011. 

But before, particularly the information she gave about Ms. 

Goforth, I would respectfully request that perhaps you get Ms. 

Goforth’s side of that story. 

Chairman CARPER. In Delaware, our Social Security disability 

operation is headquartered in Dover, our State capital, and it is interesting when you look at the number of cases across the country 

that are approved or not. The number seems to run around 50 percent, maybe a little bit over 50 percent nationwide. In Delaware, 

we have a couple of judges whose approval of cases is actually 

below 50 percent, below 40 percent, maybe as low as 30, or even 

25 percent. And there has been some training in the past year or 

so for our administrative law judges to make sure that they are 

aware of all the factors that they ought to be aware of in making 

these determinations. I am told that the training that they have 

gone through might ultimately be used as a model for some other 

parts of the country. 
73 

1See Exhibit No. 32, which appears in the Appendix on page 739. 

But I come from a State where it is not uncommon for as few 

as one out of four cases to be approved. And it boggles my mind 

when I hear of an administrative law judge who has apparently ignored our subpoena—he was not here. We were mistaken. Someone 

said they thought they saw him in the audience. Apparently not. 

But for him to approve over 99 percent of the cases that come before him, over 99 percent, and the lion’s share apparently from one 

lawyer, and I think the person in charge of overseeing this operation where this occurred was you. And what did you do about it? 

Judge ANDRUS. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, an administrative law judge has qualified judicial independence. And in 

the 27 years that I have been an administrative law judge, I can 

honestly say that no one has ever come to me, either from my 

agency or even a Member of Congress, either the Senate or the 

House of Representatives, and asked me to decide a case a certain 

way. And I think that is an important concept because, as I mentioned to one of your staff, if you were, say, representing a family 

member and you walked into the room and sat down and a judge 

walks in and you had found out that someone had told him, ‘‘You 

are allowing too many cases,’’ how would you feel about the hearing 

you are going to have? 

What I have done, and did with Judge Daugherty on one end of 

the spectrum and another judge that was on the very low end of 

the spectrum, I said, ‘‘Look, I am a manager for Social Security. I 

am not going to tell you how to decide your cases. But if you look 

and you see that you are two standard deviations above the norm 

or below the norm, maybe it is time you take a step back, take a 

look at what you are doing, and see if you want to change it.’’ 

At which point Judge Daugherty turned to me and said, ‘‘Chuck, 

I love you like a brother, but I am going to do this because I think 

that is what I should do.’’ And that is about as far as I thought 

I could go as—— 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Let me just interrupt you for a 

moment. Staff has given me an exhibit—I think it is Exhibit No. 

321—and it is called ‘‘Message 006.’’ Exhibit 32, page 1 of 9, and 

can someone help—again, it is Exhibit 32, page 1 of 9. Let me 

know when you have it, please. 

Judge ANDRUS. I will have to redo your book. I am sorry. 

Chairman CARPER. Exhibit 32, page 1 of 9. 

Judge ANDRUS. From Judge Helsper. 

Chairman CARPER. That is correct. And I am looking at—it is an 

e-mail chain. It looks like it began at the bottom of the page, it 

seems it began at about 2 p.m. on Thursday, May 19, and it is from 

Bill Connolly, and the subject is, ‘‘Heard about this.’’ And below 

that, we read, ‘‘U.S. disability claim judge has trouble saying no, 

near perfect approval record, Social Security program strained.’’ 

And then above that is an e-mail sent about 2 hours later from 

William Helsper—it is Judge Helsper? Is that correct? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, that is correct. In fact, I was the one that 

replaced Judge Helsper in Huntington, so we knew each other. 

Chairman CARPER. And it is an e-mail from him to you, and the 

subject again is, ‘‘Heard about this.’’ And there are only three 
74 

1See Exhibit No. 10, which appears in the Appendix on page 445. 

words in his message to you that says, ‘‘Shame on you.’’ ‘‘Shame 

on you,’’ with an exclamation point. 

And your response about a minute later, it looks like, to Judge 

Helsper is, ‘‘What can I say? Judicial independence.’’ 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. For a person, for a judge that operates, serves 

not for you but you are this person’s leader, and for you to say, in 

response to Judge Helsper’s ‘‘Shame on you,’’ for you to say, ‘‘What 

can I say? Judicial independence,’’ I can see where judicial independence is important. I think we will all agree on that. But not 

when the numbers are like this. 99.5 percent of the cases that come 

before that judge, who is not here, to have been approved, many 

for the same lawyer, and for you to say, ‘‘What can I say? Judicial 

independence,’’ very disappointing. Very disappointing. 

Judge, let me turn to Dr. Coburn. 

Senator COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I am flabbergasted at what we 

have heard. 

I am not a lawyer, Judge, so my deference is to you and the fact 

that you are one. Multiple times you were notified that Judge 

Daugherty was taking cases. You did nothing about it. You did 

nothing. You did not stop it. It continued. You abdicated your responsibility as chief judge. 

I am sitting here thinking, you expect us to believe that judicial 

independence is the reason that Judge Daugherty had a 99.7 percent approval rate? Is that judicial independence or is it fraud? 

And if you really think it was judicial independence—I mean, do 

you really think it was judicial independence? Is that your belief 

right now? 

Judge ANDRUS. My belief right now is that there is very little 

that management in this agency can do about a judge’s decision to 

allow or deny a claim. 

Senator COBURN. Well, that is a great point, and that is one of 

the reasons we are having this hearing, because if you are telling 

us, you are helpless. Obviously Judge Helsper did not think he 

would have been helpless with that, or he would have never sent 

you that e-mail. And what your testimony basically is, is you were 

helpless to fix the system. You allowed it to run uncontrolled. You 

had great chances to stop this, and you did not. 

I do not know your motivations. I cannot question them. But the 

fact is the facts are the facts. And what we have heard here today 

shows somebody was not minding the store. 

I would like for you to go, if you would, to Exhibit 10,1 if you can 

find that. 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. And this is from a rating, Steve—I guess it is 

Slahta. 

Judge ANDRUS. Slahta, yes. 

Senator COBURN. Slahta. And basically about changing case 

scheduling in Prestonsburg. And in the memo, you stated that you 

suspect Eric Conn was forum shopping. What do you mean by that? 

Judge ANDRUS. When I mentioned before that he seemed to be 

available some weeks and not available others, at that time the 
75 

Huntington judges were on a pretty standard schedule. We would 

do 1 week of hearings in Huntington, spend a week in the office, 

and it was always the same week. So he knew when Judge 

Daugherty was going to be in Prestonsburg. So when a scheduling 

clerk would call up and say, ‘‘I need to schedule cases for such-andsuch a week,’’ he might not be available. 

Senator COBURN. You would agree we have already gotten testimony that Eric Conn was forum shopping just by the testimony 

that has been here today. You would agree with that, right? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. That is a matter of fact now before this Committee. 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. There is no doubt in your mind? 

Judge ANDRUS. No, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. You developed two tracks of cases, 

and you set one up for his, and then you set one up for the other. 

And we heard what you said in your opening statement. The fact 

is, that was totally against agency policy, was it not? 

Judge ANDRUS. I believe that is why I asked for the deviation. 

Senator COBURN. Yes, but it was against policy, right? 

Judge ANDRUS. Right. 

Senator COBURN. And so is there any culpability on your part 

from what we have seen come about from what has happened in 

this office? 

Judge ANDRUS. I do not understand. 

Senator COBURN. You set up the system that allowed this to 

occur. I mean, you knew he was forum shopping. 

Judge ANDRUS. Right. 

Senator COBURN. And you ignored it once it really started happening big. I mean, once he started moving cases to his own—and 

how did he know those cases were in there? I mean, we have developed that fact, that the only way he could have known is that he 

was told by Mr. Conn the names and the Social Security numbers. 

That is the only way he could have gone into your system and rearranged and assigned those cases to himself. He did not know they 

were in there because they had not been filed and brought up to 

date so that you would see them on a list. 

Judge ANDRUS. I believe there is a report that is sent up from 

the district office when they transferred an electronic case to us. 

Senator COBURN. And does that go to the judges? 

Judge ANDRUS. No, it does not. 

Senator COBURN. No, it does not. So the only way he could have 

known is have the names and Social Security numbers—we have 

numerous e-mails to you about this problem. Nothing happened. I 

am just asking, Why didn’t something happen? I mean, you ultimately as the chief judge were responsible for this. I am just saying, sitting back, listening to what you have had to say—you know, 

I am obviously not a very good attorney. I am a pretty good doctor. 

But I do not think it passes the smell test, your answers, in terms 

of how this happened and how it came about. That is opinion and 

that is not fact, and I am sorry to bore you with that. 

My staff asked you, in early interviews, if you knew anything 

about trying to videotape Sarah Carver. 
76 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. And you denied knowledge of that to my staff, 

did you not? 

Judge ANDRUS. I said I could not recall. 

Senator COBURN. OK, you could not recall. It would seem to me 

if you are going to videotape somebody, you would have trouble not 

recalling that. But after the fact, you, in fact, signed a statement 

saying, in fact, it did happen. Is that correct? 

Judge ANDRUS. That is correct. 

Senator COBURN. And you were involved in it. 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. You do recall that. 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. And what was the purpose for that 

videotaping? 

Judge ANDRUS. To see if Ms. Carver was abusing Flexi-Place. 

Senator COBURN. And did you have any reason to believe that 

she was? And is it abnormal for a chief judge to go after somebody 

that works under them in that regard? When Judge Daugherty 

abused his time all the time, nobody could ever find him in his office? What was the reason for that? 

Judge ANDRUS. There are some things that are not public record 

that I cannot talk about in a public hearing, which is why I suggested you may want to talk with Ms. Goforth. 

Senator COBURN. Well, we are going to—Social Security would 

have been here had it not been for legal wrangling, and they will 

be here, and so we will get to that. 

As a judge, an administrative law judge in the United States of 

America, was your action proper in any way, shape, or form in 

terms of trying to work with the lawyer who has nothing to do with 

Sarah, and actually what I would say is a conspiracy between you 

and Mr. Conn, was there anything proper about that? 

Judge ANDRUS. Not at all. 

Senator COBURN. Was it ethical? 

Judge ANDRUS. No. 

Senator COBURN. OK. So when you tell us that you disagree with 

some of Ms. Carver’s assertions as to the office, especially in terms 

of Ms. Goforth, is that based on fact or is that based on opinion? 

Judge ANDRUS. That is based on discussions Ms. Goforth had 

with me when I was the chief judge, and she was Ms. Carver’s supervisor. 

Senator COBURN. And you have heard the testimony here today 

about perceived, if not actual, retributions against Ms. Carver? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. All right. And you discount those? 

Judge ANDRUS. Since when I was no longer the hearing office 

chief judge, I do not know what the current management is doing. 

I was a line judge. They did not discuss it. They could not discuss 

it. So I do not know what the basis was for their actions. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you. 

I want to jump back to where we were just a moment ago. A 

number of people in the Philadelphia regional office disagreed with 

your proposal when you tried to change. That is why you sought 

an exemption for it, back to what we were talking about before. If 
77 

1See Exhibit No. 11, which appears in the Appendix on page 447. 

you would turn to Exhibit 11,1 page 3, at the top of that page, this 

e-mail states, ‘‘Your whole proposal seems to be an attempt to accommodate Mr. Conn.’’ That is in the e-mail. 

Judge ANDRUS. I am trying to find that. 

Senator COBURN. It is page 3, Exhibit 11. 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, I see that. 

Senator COBURN. Isn’t that the case? 

Judge ANDRUS. No, sir. The purpose of trying to do that was not 

to accommodate Mr. Conn, but was to try and make sure that he 

did not try and get a disproportionate number of his cases before 

Judge Daugherty and, say, not one of the other judges who had a 

lower allowance rate, and to make sure that we had the ability to 

schedule his cases so that they would not age more than cases that 

were represented by other representatives. 

Senator COBURN. Wasn’t it the case that Mr. Conn routinely, if 

he got in front of a judge or had cases assigned in front of a judge, 

that he would try to reschedule cases so that he could get a different judge? 

Judge ANDRUS. I do not know about anyone else, but he did not 

do that with me. 

Senator COBURN. No, but wasn’t—I think our testimony that we 

took in our investigation showed that he tried that technique several times so that he could change what judge he was presenting 

in front of. Are you not aware of that? 

Judge ANDRUS. I am aware that he would dismiss cases and 

refile them. 

Senator COBURN. Yes. 

Judge ANDRUS. Is that what you are speaking about, Senator? 

Senator COBURN. Yes. 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, I am aware of that. 

Senator COBURN. Yes. So he would dismiss cases in front of a 

judge that he did not think would give him a favorable outcome so 

that those cases could then be before Judge Daugherty. 

Judge ANDRUS. Actually, those cases were supposed to have been 

reassigned to the same judge. 

Senator COBURN. Did Mr. Conn ever withdraw a case before you 

during a hearing? 

Judge ANDRUS. During a hearing? 

Senator COBURN. Yes. 

Judge ANDRUS. I believe he has. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Do you remember the numbers? 

Judge ANDRUS. I could estimate for you. Maybe two or three in 

a docket of 3 or 4 days. 

Senator COBURN. All right. I will enter into the record the number of Conn withdrawals before Judge Andrus. It totals in 2005, 25; 

in 2006, 52; in 2007, 75; in 2008, 68; in 2009, 58; in 2010, 69; in 

2011, 34. I ask unanimous consent that be made part of the record, 

and since Tom is not here, any objection? Thank you. 

So there were a significant number of cases—— 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator COBURN [continuing]. Withdrawn in front of you? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 
78 

Senator COBURN. Not one or two, not three or four, but hundreds. 

Judge ANDRUS. I said one or two per docket. 

Senator COBURN. Per docket, and how many dockets would you 

typically have that Mr. Conn would be in? 

Judge ANDRUS. At least once a month down in Prestonsburg, and 

he also had some cases in Huntington. 

Senator COBURN. So maybe 18 times a year. 

Judge ANDRUS. At least. 

Senator COBURN. Yes, so at least sometimes as many as six—— 

Judge ANDRUS. On a docket. 

Senator COBURN. Yes, requested dismissals that were on the 

docket. Is that not a waste of your time? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes and no. 

Senator COBURN. All right. I am going to get to my point. Can 

you tell this Committee that you honestly believe that you had no 

inclination that there was anything nefarious going on with Judge 

Daugherty and Eric Conn? You had no suspicion that there was 

anything going on in this process where Conn would, on the record, 

do multiple on-the-record decisions, would rotate decisions out of 

the registry and put them on his own docket, Eric Conn’s, take 

cases from other judges that were Eric Conn’s and reassign them 

to himself, and you at no time had any suspicion that this was anything other than judicial independence? 

Judge ANDRUS. No, sir, I am not saying that. 

Senator COBURN. All right. So my next question is: If you are not 

saying that, you had to have had some suspicion that things were 

not going in an ethical manner in relationship to Mr. Conn and 

Judge Daugherty because you suspected Conn of forum shopping? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. So do you regret now not interceding in that? 

I mean, there is no question administrative law judges have independence, but they do not have independence to totally flout the 

rules and violate the law. You would agree with that? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. Do you think you failed as chief judge in managing Judge Daugherty? 

Judge ANDRUS. I thought I had done what I was able to do as 

far as that is concerned. I told Judge Daugherty not to reassign the 

cases. 

Senator COBURN. But he did anyway. 

Judge ANDRUS. He did anyway. 

Senator COBURN. Regardless of what you told him. 

Judge ANDRUS. That is correct. 

Senator COBURN. So you had no administrative capabilities that 

you could have used outside what you used to change that situation? A totally defiant judge going directly against your order of reassigning cases, moving cases, taking cases away from other judges 

who had previously decided and then take them himself, changing 

the onset dates—— 

Judge ANDRUS. Changing the onset dates—— 

Senator COBURN. Well, he did—when he would get the case reassigned, then he would send the information, and the cases would 
79 

go back to the date at which first denial or change the dates, he 

would actually manipulate the system. 

Judge ANDRUS. The claimant would change the onset, yes. 

Senator COBURN. Yes, at the request of Judge Daugherty, as we 

have heard here today. 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. All right. So did you at any time take anything 

of value whatsoever from Mr. Conn, his employees, or his associates? 

Judge ANDRUS. He gave me some digital video discs (DVDs) that 

had been movies that had been burned into recordable DVDs. Mr. 

Conn also on occasion brought sandwiches to the office, to the hearing office. 

Senator COBURN. All right. And that is the extent of any interaction of value. 

Judge ANDRUS. And the DVDs were of minimal value and well 

within the ethics standards as far as accepting gifts, and the—— 

Senator COBURN. Yes. Did—— 

Judge ANDRUS. Excuse me, Senator. I do not mean to interrupt 

you. 

Senator COBURN. No, that is OK. I did not let you finish. 

Judge ANDRUS. And the food is also—if we do get gifts of food 

from attorneys, which the office sometimes does, we make that 

available to the entire office or provide it to some food bank. 

Senator COBURN. Yes. Well, you are not the only profession with 

problems with that. I was a doctor and would not allow the drug 

companies to bring in anything for my employees because I did not 

want to be seen as being complicit or bought. 

I have gone way past my time. I will pass it off to Senator Levin. 

Senator LEVIN. Judge, the report that we released today describes a number of instances in which Judge Daugherty’s improper practice of assigning Conn cases to himself and taking Conn 

cases from other judges and assigning them to himself was reported to you as chief judge. This issue was brought to your attention by Judge Kemper in 2005 and again in 2006. In 2007, 2 years 

after it was first brought to your attention, another judge, Judge 

Gitlow, alerted you to the fact that Judge Daugherty was assigning 

cases to himself, and Judge Gitlow brought the matter to your attention again in 2009 and 2011. Ms. Carver and Ms. Griffith also 

reported this behavior directly to you as well. 

Now, are you saying as chief judge that you had no power to discipline Judge Daugherty? 

Judge ANDRUS. A hearing office chief judge has no power to discipline an administrative law judge at all. 

Senator LEVIN. Do you have power to recommend? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, I do. 

Senator LEVIN. Did you? 

Judge ANDRUS. On that, no, I did not send that up to the regional office. 

Senator LEVIN. How many of these cases did he actually withdraw from you? 

Judge ANDRUS. None that I know of. 

Senator LEVIN. So he never took a case from you? 

Judge ANDRUS. Right. 
80 

1See Exhibit No. 55, which appears in the Appendix on page 1180. 

Senator LEVIN. But you knew that all these other judges—there 

were how many ALJs there? 

Judge ANDRUS. It varied between five and eight others. 

Senator LEVIN. And so you get complaint after complaint after 

complaint. You knew they were true. You told him he had to stop 

it—how many times? At least three times you told him. He did not 

stop it. In fact, all he said, I guess, was, ‘‘Oops.’’ 

Judge ANDRUS. That was the last one, yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. Yes. ‘‘Oops.’’ 

Judge ANDRUS. Now, the last time—— 

Senator LEVIN. And the guy is doing forum shopping, and you 

are suspicious of it, and you have all these complaints from your 

colleagues, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, from your own staff, and 

you are sitting here and saying, well, gee whiz, you did not have 

power to do anything about it. But you did have power to make a 

recommendation, and you did not do that. 

Judge ANDRUS. I did in 2011, Senator. 

Senator LEVIN. After it hit the paper. 

Judge ANDRUS. Before it hit the paper. 

Senator LEVIN. Just before it hit the paper. 

Judge ANDRUS. Right. 

Senator LEVIN. You knew there was something going on by then. 

Judge ANDRUS. I cannot recall that. 

Senator LEVIN. I think your staff recalls it. 

So 2011, when something is just about ready to pop, now you decide you are going to take some kind of action. I find this incredible. And your invocation of the term ‘‘judicial independence’’ I find 

to be, frankly, despicable. Judge, I am looking you right in the eye. 

I have judges in my family. I know what judicial independence is. 

You cannot say that somebody who is engaged, as this lawyer was, 

99.9 percent of his cases, one way, after stealing cases from other 

dockets and you knew about it, and then you invoke—or you did 

invoke as an excuse judicial independence. As a lawyer and as a 

nephew of a Federal judge and as a cousin of another Federal 

judge, I find your invocation of judicial independence to be something which, frankly, you ought to be ashamed of as a lawyer. It 

has nothing to do with judicial independence. It has to do with 

whether or not you have abdicated your role as a chief judge in 

that area, that region, to do something about an intolerable situation. That is what it is about, an abdication on your part. And it 

cannot have any other name from my view. 

E-mails. You sent out e-mails, this behavior cannot be allowed. 

But you did not stop the practice, nor did you bring into your administrative agencies in your region somebody who could do something about it. 

And here is what you did, instead of acting to stamp out this activity, these misdeeds that are going on under your nose: In 2001, 

Greg Hall, your office supervisor, sent you a memo—this is Exhibit 

55,1 Judge, if you want to look at it. Your office supervisor sent you 

a memo noting that Judge Daugherty had missed three scheduled 

hearings. If you would take a look at Exhibit 55. [Pause.] 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 
81 

1See Exhibit No. 56, which appears in the Appendix on page 1181. 

Senator LEVIN. This is May 10, 2001. He missed three hearings, 

yet he later took credit for having worked those hours. 

Then in 2002, you are alerted by Judge Kemper that Judge 

Daugherty appeared to be signing in each morning and then immediately leaving the office for hours at a time. That is the next exhibit there, Exhibit 56.1 So here is what Judge Kemper tells you: 

‘‘When I signed in today, I noticed that Judge Showalter had 

signed in at 7:15, and directly under her name was Judge 

Daugherty’s initials, reportedly showing that he had signed in at 

the same time. When I drove by the Third Avenue entrance at 

7:35, I noticed Daugherty’s car was parked in the handicapped 

spot, and after parking my car and coming to the front entrance, 

I noticed that his car was gone. I spoke to Judge Showalter about 

this, and she assured me that he was nowhere in sight when she 

signed in at 7:15. At exactly 8:10, Showalter went downstairs and 

informed me that his car was still gone. This is the usual procedure 

he follows every day. When Judge Paris is here, he usually signs 

in at 6:30, and if no one signs in earlier than about 7:15, 

Daugherty will sign in directly below Judge Paris’ name at the 

same time of 6:30. And if you will speak to Judge Paris, I am sure 

he will tell you that he never sees Daugherty when he comes in.’’ 

So Daugherty is coming in at the same time as these two judges, 

but they never see him. 

Now, he goes on: ‘‘One of us will be sending you periodic e-mails 

to show you this pattern of cheating’’—cheating—‘‘on time and attendance, which, by the way, Judges Gitlow, Chwalibog, and I have 

consistently informed you about through the years.’’ 

Is that true? Have they consistently informed you about that 

cheating pattern? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. Can you do something about cheating? Is that judicial independence? 

Judge ANDRUS. Me? 

Senator LEVIN. No. Can you get somebody there to do something 

about cheating? This is 2002. 

Judge ANDRUS. That is what I sent up to the regional chief judge. 

Senator LEVIN. That he is cheating? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. And the chief judge? 

Judge ANDRUS. Judge Cristaudo. 

Senator LEVIN. And did what? 

Judge ANDRUS. I believe on that incident he talked to the people 

in central office, the national chief judge, and nothing was done. 

Senator LEVIN. And what did they do? 

Judge ANDRUS. Nothing. 

Senator LEVIN. What did you hear? Did you get a reply? 

Judge ANDRUS. No. 

Senator LEVIN. So you wrote the chief judge—— 

Judge ANDRUS. I wrote my regional chief judge. 

Senator LEVIN. The regional chief judge, who is still there. 

Judge ANDRUS. Well, he is still in the agency. He is not—— 
82 

1See Exhibit No. 59, which appears in the Appendix on page 1190. 

Senator LEVIN. Yes, and he did nothing after being informed that 

your colleague, it was said by a number of your other colleagues, 

Judge Daugherty was said to be cheating on his time, and you 

never heard back. 

Judge ANDRUS. Not anything specific. 

Senator LEVIN. How about something general? 

Judge ANDRUS. When I spoke with Judge Cristaudo, he said he 

had forwarded it to the national chief judge, and that is the last 

I—— 

Senator LEVIN. The last you heard of it, and you never followed 

up to say, ‘‘Hey, guys, I never heard back. What is going on? ’’ 

Judge ANDRUS. That is correct. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. So you never followed up. 

Judge ANDRUS. No. 

Senator LEVIN. All right. Now, in 2002, Exhibit 59,1 if you would 

take a look at that, says—this is from Frank Cristaudo. 

Judge ANDRUS. Right. 

Senator LEVIN. That is the same Judge Cristaudo? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. You said you never heard from him. So here is 

Exhibit 59, 11/8/2002. ‘‘Charlie’’—that is you, right? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. ‘‘. . . you have often mentioned that Judge 

Daugherty fails to comply with time and attendance rules. We ask 

you to monitor his compliance with the time and attendance rules 

and to deal with any failures to comply. Please let me know the 

status of his compliance with the time and attendance rules. Only 

by actually documenting incidents of unapproved absences will 

there be any opportunity to take action for such abuse. Therefore, 

I am asking you to monitor the time sheet and whereabouts of 

Judge Daugherty. If he cannot be located in his private office or 

elsewhere in the office environment, you should leave a note in his 

office asking him to see you as soon as he returns. You, of course, 

should keep detailed notes to document periods of absence and 

times you left notes for him.’’ 

This is a pretty specific response, isn’t it? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. Did you do that? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. So you took all these notes and kept track of 

Judge Daugherty when he was not there and followed his patterns 

of cheating. 

Judge ANDRUS. When—— 

Senator LEVIN. And then you sent these notes, did you, to Judge 

Cristaudo? 

Judge ANDRUS. What I did was, when he would come—when I 

could not find him, I left the note. 

Senator LEVIN. Left a note? 

Judge ANDRUS. In his office. 

Senator LEVIN. And then you kept track of all the times? Did you 

then tell Judge Cristaudo? 

Judge ANDRUS. Right. 
83 

1See Exhibit No. 61, which appears in the Appendix on page 1194. 

Senator LEVIN. And you sent him all this information, ‘‘Hey, I 

have done what you told me to do,’’ and—— 

Judge ANDRUS. No. Judge Daugherty came to me and explained 

where he was. He would either fill in, give me a leave slip to account for the time—we are talking, Senator, 11 years ago. 

Senator LEVIN. So you are saying he did not persist with the 

abuse of time? 

Judge ANDRUS. There were times that he would leave and not indicate it on the sign-out sheet, and I would bring that to his attention, and the time sign-out sheet would be corrected and/or he 

would give me a leave slip. 

Senator LEVIN. And did he also sign in when he actually was not 

there? Did that pattern continue that he was putting his initials 

underneath some judges’ time for showing up but really was not 

there? Did that continue? 

Judge ANDRUS. Not that I was able to see. 

Senator LEVIN. You were just told by, you said, your chief judge 

you were supposed to keep track of it. 

Judge ANDRUS. Right. I do not get in at the same time he does. 

Senator LEVIN. But you could check with all the judges who came 

at a time that they signed in, and then if Daugherty was not there, 

you could ask them did this pattern continue. You could have done 

that. 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. But you did not. 

Judge ANDRUS. No, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. But your chief judge, who you said never even responded to your e-mail, who did respond to your e-mail—— 

Judge ANDRUS. That response was on a different incident. 

Senator LEVIN. This is not an incident. You say—according to 

Cristaudo, you have often mentioned that Judge Daugherty fails to 

comply with time and attendance . . .’’ It was more than one incident. And then they ask you, they directed you what to do. ‘‘First 

time he is absent without approved leave, give him a leave slip and 

caution him further time and attendance will lead you to AWOL 

assessments and disciplinary action. It is very important you document each instance with notes and copies of leave slips as well as 

a summary of each incident and the discussion with him. If he persists with abuse of the time and attendance rules, with the record 

you will have created, we will seek disciplinary action against 

him.’’ 

Well, did you? 

Judge ANDRUS. No. 

Senator LEVIN. And then take a look at Exhibit 59. 

Judge ANDRUS. I thought that is what we were on. 

Senator LEVIN. I am sorry. Exhibit 61.1 Now it is 3 years later. 

This is Frank Cristaudo to—who is Valerie Loughran? 

Judge ANDRUS. She was the regional management officer. 

Senator LEVIN. ‘‘Subject: Judge Kemper and complaints about 

leave abuse by Judge Daugherty.’’ 
84 

‘‘Thanks, Val. I agree something needs to be done. I have directed Judge Andrus on several occasions to take care of this. He 

is either unwilling or unable to handle the situation.’’ 

Boy, that is an understatement. 

There has been some discussion—I am way over my time. 

Chairman CARPER. That is OK. 

Senator LEVIN. There has been some discussion today, Judge, 

about a plan by you and Mr. Conn to discredit a whistleblower, Ms. 

Carver, who we heard from earlier today, with the goal of having 

Ms. Carver disciplined or fired. And as part of this plan, you mentioned to Mr. Conn that Ms. Carver was probably not actually 

working on the days she worked from home. You mentioned it. You 

brought it up. Is that true? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. Now, why did you bring that up? This is a 

woman who works for you. 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. So now you are telling Mr. Conn that she probably is not actually working the days that she worked from home. 

In other words, she is allowed to work from home on certain days. 

But you told Conn that she probably was not actually working on 

those days. Why did you do that? Try again. You have had a couple 

seconds here now to think about why you would do that. 

Judge ANDRUS. Senator, that came up in a conversation, and, 

quite frankly, I do not recall the specific reason that I had said 

that. We were discussing how Ms. Carver always seems to be wanting everyone else to follow all the rules, but—— 

Senator LEVIN. You were just talking about Ms. Carver, just 

talking to Conn about your staffer, she does not seem to be following all the rules, it just comes out of the blue. 

Judge ANDRUS. But we were talking about the Wall Street Journal article and that she had met—or he had related to me, I believe, that she had met with some people and the reporter. 

Senator LEVIN. Some other people who also had blown the whistle, right? Grover Arnett, Judge Kemper, along with her. Is that 

right? 

Judge ANDRUS. I believe that is correct. 

Senator LEVIN. And they met with the Wall Street Journal reporter about Judge Daugherty. And so, then you told the IG that 

he was not happy with Sarah Carver. Who was not happy with 

Sarah Carver? 

Judge ANDRUS. Mr. Conn. 

Senator LEVIN. Mr. Conn. So now Mr. Conn was not happy about 

your employee, so you say, ‘‘Hey, she is supposed to be working at 

home on these special days where she is allowed to work at home,’’ 

and he said, ‘‘Difficult to prove that. The only way she could be disciplined is if there was a video sent to her supervisor.’’ So Eric 

Conn said he would be willing to hire a private investigator to 

check. Is that right? 

Judge ANDRUS. That is correct. 

Senator LEVIN. And then you say you told him, ‘‘That sounds like 

an idea.’’ And then Eric Conn gave you a note. Is that correct? 

Judge ANDRUS. That is correct. 

Senator LEVIN. For Sarah Nease. Does she work for you? 
85 

Judge ANDRUS. Sandy. 

Senator LEVIN. I am sorry. Sandra Nease. Does she work for 

you? 

Judge ANDRUS. Well, at that time I was not the chief judge, so 

it was—working for me was—— 

Senator LEVIN. Well, but he gave you the note. 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. And so that note was for you to give to Sandra 

Nease. Is that correct? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. And you did it. 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. And that note had a cell number of a contact in 

Eric Conn’s office, and you gave it to Sandra Nease, right? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. And she said that she would call the person when 

she knew that Sarah Carver was on Flexi-Place; in other words, 

when she was supposed to be working at home. Right? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. How do you justify—— 

Judge ANDRUS. I do not. It was a very stupid and wrong thing 

to do. 

Senator LEVIN. I have more questions, but I will yield. 

Chairman CARPER. I want to understand, if I can, how agencies—in this case, the agency in Huntington—could be rewarded or 

its employees rewarded for meeting or exceeding their goals. If 

Senator Levin here or Dr. Coburn or any of our other colleagues 

authored and passed 10 times more pieces of legislation, even good 

pieces of legislation, they do not get paid any more money, and 

their staff probably does not either. 

My understanding is that when the Huntington operation—and, 

frankly, others like it around the country—were struggling to overcome a backlog, the word went out, ‘‘Move these cases,’’ and one of 

the people who is pretty good apparently at moving cases is Judge 

Daugherty. And I am wondering if, how, reducing the backlog, 

moving a lot of cases quickly, did that make anyone in the Huntington office eligible for some kind of cash bonus? My understanding is that the judges are not eligible. 

Judge ANDRUS. Judges cannot get any kind of cash award. 

Chairman CARPER. But just explain to us how the system works. 

I just want to understand the financial incentives that might flow 

from this. 

Judge ANDRUS. There are two contracts with the National Treasury Employee Union (NTEU), which covers the attorneys in the office. There is a contract with AFGE that covers the non-attorney 

staff. And then there is also a procedure for management employees, which does not include the HOCALJ, because as an administrative law judge, I can get no performance awards. 

The awards for AFGE changed about 2006, I believe, when they 

had a new contract, and that depended on a performance rating 

that went from pass-fail to a numerical rating, and that was given 

by the group supervisors, the first-line supervisors. 
86 

The performance awards for the management team, which are 

the group supervisors and the hearing office director, were all handled through the regional chief judge’s office. 

Now, the office, I believe, 2 or 3 years in a row got a Deputy 

Commissioner’s Team Award from Deputy Commissioner Sklar. I 

believe that was one of them. Maybe his predecessor. I am not 

sure. 

Chairman CARPER. And what would trigger that performance 

award or that recognition? 

Judge ANDRUS. The Deputy Commissioner’s citation? 

Chairman CARPER. That sounds like a big deal. 

Judge ANDRUS. It is a plaque and a coffee mug or a plaque and 

a little star. That is given through the Deputy Commissioner’s office. My office does not have anything to do with that. 

Chairman CARPER. I understand. But give us some idea to whom 

the performance award—a monetary performance award might be 

paid, just give us some idea. Is it a couple hundred dollars? Is 

it—— 

Judge ANDRUS. Something along that, $200 to $500. I believe the 

exact amounts—I noticed seeing it in the report that I reviewed, 

and I do not remember the exact amounts. But those are, as I said, 

awarded by the regional chief judge’s office, and I do make recommendations to them on that. As the chief judge, I made recommendations to them. 

Chairman CARPER. Recommendations as to who would receive—— 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Chairman CARPER [continuing]. The monetary performance 

award? 

Judge ANDRUS. Just who would receive it, not how much. 

Chairman CARPER. And who decides how much? 

Judge ANDRUS. I believe it is either the regional management officer or the regional chief judge. I am not sure who up there made 

the final decision. 

Chairman CARPER. So it could be a couple hundred dollars, it 

could be a couple thousand dollars in some cases? 

Judge ANDRUS. I do not think it would be a thousand. I may be 

wrong, but as I said, I remember seeing something referenced to 

that in your report. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. I am not a lawyer. I am not even a doctor like Dr. Coburn here. But I have always been interested in how 

financial incentives motivate behavior, and some of my friends who 

are lawyers, who go off to work in law firms, sometimes after serving in the Congress, go off and they become rainmakers. They go 

to work for these law firms, and not that they are going to go into 

the courtroom and be a trial lawyer, but they know folks and they 

are able to bring in business. 

Was Judge Daugherty something of a rainmaker for the Huntington office? 

Judge ANDRUS. I see your analogy. Let me try and—if Judge—— 

Chairman CARPER. Let me just ask, is there something to say 

that, but for his performance moving all these cases, more than 

twice the national average, even though they are at 99.5 percent 

in one direction, but for that, moving that many cases that fast, is 
87 

it likely that the Huntington office would not have received the 

kind of recognition that it did? 

Judge ANDRUS. If Judge Daugherty had only done the 500 cases 

a year that they have asked a judge to do, except for 2 or 3 years, 

the Huntington office would have met all of its performance goals. 

So during one point of time, it was necessary that those cases get 

out so that the goals would be met. Most of the other times, if he 

had just done the normal amount that any of us did, we still would 

have reached our performance goals. 

Chairman CARPER. But those 2 or 3 years when his throughput 

made a difference, did that trigger, directly or indirectly, the performance awards? 

Judge ANDRUS. The monetary wards? 

Chairman CARPER. Yes. 

Judge ANDRUS. I do not believe so. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. All right. Senator Levin, I am going to 

in a few minutes just turn this over to you. 

Senator LEVIN. I am almost done. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Go ahead, please. 

Senator LEVIN. I just wanted to see if I heard the answer to the 

Chairman’s last question. Did the ALJs get monetary awards? 

Judge ANDRUS. No, never. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. Now, going back to this action that was 

taken against Ms. Carver, did Judge Daugherty know what you 

were doing? 

Judge ANDRUS. I believe Judge Daugherty did not. I think he 

was out of the office. He had left. I believe he had retired. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. When both staffs interviewed you, both PSI 

staffs, I guess, and now maybe our Chairman’s staff. It is a little 

bit intermixed. But in any event, when the staffs talked to you, you 

said that there was no plan to have Ms. Carver followed, and yet 

that was within a month or two after the decision was made to follow her. Was it not? You talked to our staffs in June 2012. 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. When did you suggest that she be videotaped? 

Wasn’t that in early 2012? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. So in early 2012, when you participated in this 

scheme, you told our staffs just a few months later that there was 

no plan to have her followed or videotaped. 

Judge ANDRUS. I remember talking about it, and from what we 

were talking about, I thought the question was whether I was directly, personally involved in the videotaping. And I believe what 

had happened was that was at the end of a very long day of going 

over quite a few of the things you have discussed with me. And I 

was not sure of the details, and I did not want to give the wrong 

information. 

Senator LEVIN. Did you say to our staffs, ‘‘I certainly did not get 

involved in Sarah Carver’s Flexi-Place? ’’ Did you say that? 

Judge ANDRUS. I believe I did, but that was regarding the 

videotaping. I did not do any of that. 

Senator LEVIN. This did not say videotaping. It says, ‘‘I certainly 

did not get involved in Sarah Carver’s Flexi-Place.’’ Were you involved? 
88 

Judge ANDRUS. I had talked to Mr. Conn about doing that, 

and—— 

Senator LEVIN. Talked to him? You suggested it. 

Judge ANDRUS. I do not believe I suggested it. 

Senator LEVIN. Just a few minutes ago, you said that in order 

to take this matter up, we have to have a videotape. 

Judge ANDRUS. Right. That was—— 

Senator LEVIN. How is that for a suggestion? 

Judge ANDRUS. I see what you are getting at. The videotape, yes, 

I brought that up. The idea, we were talking and . . . 

Senator LEVIN. And you passed along the phone number, too, 

right? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, I did. 

Senator LEVIN. How is that for involvement? The truth of the 

matter is, is it not, Judge Andrus, that you were involved in Sarah 

Carver’s Flexi-Place issue and the effort to prove that she violated 

the rules of Flexi-Place? You were involved, is that not true? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes. But I thought the question that they were 

talking about was the actual videotaping itself. 

Senator LEVIN. Then you also were asked the following question: 

‘‘Did you ask Sandy Nease to call Conn’s office and inform them of 

Sarah Carver’s Flexi-Place? ’’ Do you remember what you answered? 

Judge ANDRUS. ‘‘Yes.’’ 

Senator LEVIN. What did you answer? 

Judge ANDRUS. I said, ‘‘Yes.’’ 

Senator LEVIN. No. You said, ‘‘Not that I can recall.’’ 

Judge ANDRUS. Oh. Again, when they started talking about this, 

I had no idea this was coming, that this was going to be discussed. 

Senator LEVIN. That is no excuse for lying. 

Judge ANDRUS. I did not recall enough of the details to want to 

give them inaccurate information. So that is why I couched it in 

the way I couched it. I do not recall. 

Senator LEVIN. You did give them inaccurate information. You 

gave them inaccurate information when you said you could not recall it when it was very recent information. And then you were specifically asked, ‘‘Did you give Nease the cell phone number of one 

of Conn’s employees, Melinda? ’’ Do you remember your answer? 

Judge ANDRUS. No, sir. What was it? 

Senator LEVIN. What is it now? 

Judge ANDRUS. Oh, I did—when I went back to Huntington and 

was able to go through the whole process again—— 

Senator LEVIN. What is your answer now? 

Judge ANDRUS. Yes, I did give her a phone number. 

Senator LEVIN. But after a long pause, you talked to our staffs, 

your answer was, ‘‘Not that I remember.’’ Much closer to the event 

than when you talked to the IG. 

And then you were asked if you were aware of calls being made 

to Melinda about Sarah Carver’s Flexi-Place. I mean, you were 

asked specifically that question. And your answer? Do you remember your answer? 

Judge ANDRUS. I believe, ‘‘I do not recall.’’ 

Senator LEVIN. No. ‘‘Not that I know of.’’ [Pause.] 
89 

I guess I am done. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank 

you for holding this hearing. 

Chairman CARPER. Well, we want to thank you, and we want to 

thank Dr. Coburn. We want to thank your staffs for 2 years worth 

of work that brought us to this hearing today. We want to thank 

our witnesses. We especially want to thank our first panel of witnesses for making the trek here and for risking a lot to be here. 

Senator LEVIN. Mr. Chairman, I think probably if Dr. Coburn 

were here, he would ask that this matter now be adjourned. Is it 

recessed or adjourned if we are going to have another hearing? 

Chairman CARPER. We are going to have another hearing, and 

with the panel that we had hoped to be panel four, the Social Security Administration, as soon as our government is up and running 

again, the shutdown is over, we want to convene a hearing and 

complete these deliberations, at least for now. 

Senator LEVIN. And Judge David Daugherty as well. 

Chairman CARPER. And we expect Judge Daugherty to be here 

at that time. 

Our hearing today discusses deeply troubling findings regarding 

a program that, I think we would all acknowledge, is critically important in our country. It supports Americans who are unable to 

work and enables them not to live affluently, but to have at least 

a life and have access to health care through Medicare or Medicaid. 

It is an important program, it is a needed program, and it is a program that is running out of money. And within the next year or 

two, it is going to run out of money entirely. And one of the ways 

to best ensure that it is going to be there for folks who need it in 

the years to come is to look at how we are operating this program 

and whether it is Huntington, West Virginia, or Kentucky or anyplace else, and ask this question: If it is not perfect how do we 

make it better? 

We in Congress have a responsibility, and it is a shared responsibility, but a responsibility to make certain that we make the efforts 

that we have talked about here, that are needed to prevent fraud 

or waste or abuse. Our efforts are joined in by a whole lot of people, not just here in Washington, not just on this Committee, but 

folks around the country who are actually working in the venues, 

who actually do the work on a daily basis, to receive the applications for disability, to decide on them, to adjudicate them, and to 

move on. 

I really again want to thank our witnesses for joining us today 

and for taking the time to be here with us. This is not the end of 

the road. I like to quote sometimes Winston Churchill, who was 

asked at the end of World War II, shortly after he was a hero, 

saved the Brits, 6 months later they threw him out of office, and 

he was asked by a reporter, he said, ‘‘For you, Mr. Churchill, is this 

the end? ’’ And he said, ‘‘This is not the end. This is not the beginning of the end.’’ He said, ‘‘This is the end of the beginning.’’ And 

for some of you, that is not going to be very good news. 

But this is a story that has not been written in its entirety, but 

however this story ends up, we are going to make darn sure that 

the folks get a fair shake when they are applying for these disabilities awards. And we are going to make sure that the folks who are 

running these programs are playing by the rules and that, to the 
90 

extent that we can, people are figuring out what is the right thing 

to do and doing it and we have leaders in place, in Huntington and 

other places, to make sure that this is going to be the case. 

The hearing record is going to be open for, I think, another 15 

days, until October 22, 5 p.m., for the submission of statements 

and questions for the record. 

With that, this hearing is adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 8:05 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 
(91) 

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Æ