Where Are Sarah Carver and Jennifer Griffith now? Let’s find them. On Apple TV+, ‘The Big Conn‘ is a gripping true-crime documentary series. It was created by James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte to expose Eric C. Conn, a social security lawyer from Pikeville, Kentucky, who scammed the federal government of more than $550 million in social security benefits.
Four of his associates assisted him, including two SSA judges from Huntington and two doctors. Apart from the facts of the fraud, the series also highlights the work of two heroic whistleblowers, Sarah Carver and Jennifer Griffith, who assisted in catching the wrongdoers. Let us learn more about them right now.
Recommended: Where is ‘Eric C. Conn’ Kentucky Lawyer Now?
Sarah Carver and Jennifer Griffith: Who Are They?
Jennifer Lynn Griffith worked at the Social Security Administration (SSA) hearings office in Huntington, West Virginia, as a Master Docket Clerk since 2004. She worked in the Office of Disabilities Adjudication and Review, specifically (ODAR). Sarah Carver, a Senior Case Technician, also worked in the same office.
Beginning in 2006, they noticed inconsistencies in the computerised tracking system, where data of cases assigned to administrative law judge (ALJ) David Daugherty vanished. Daugherty was not only making positive findings in all of Eric C. Conn’s disability claims cases, but he was also reassigning several cases of other judges to himself and expediting the proceedings, according to Griffith and Carver.
They complained to their managers several times, both vocally and in writing, but none of their objections was addressed. Griffith was forced to quit in October 2007 after receiving a poor performance rating from the same supervisor she had previously informed about the problem.
Regardless, the former SSA employee persisted in her attempts and gave her account to administrative law judge Dan Kemper in order to file a complaint with the ALJ union about Daugherty’s misbehaviour. She then made an anonymous call to the SSA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) in 2009 to report the case.
In 2011, she also filed an internet fraud complaint with the OIG against Conn and Daugherty. She and Carver then met with OIG representatives for eight hours to give them all the information they had. Griffith also submitted a letter in June 2011 documenting her supervisors’ retribution, which led to her departure.
Sarah Carver (L) and Jennifer Griffith (R) attend the special screening of the four-part documentary series ‘The Big Conn’ at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, California, USA, 03 May 2022.
Special screening of the four-part documentary series ‘The Big Conn’ in West Hollywood, USA – 03 May 2022
In October of that year, she and Carver filed another False Claims Act complaint as well as a whistleblower case against the perpetrators. According to the series, the two ladies also supported Wall Street Journal journalist Damian Paletta with his investigation into the SSA fraud, which he wrote and published in May 2011.
Paletta’s article, as well as federal agents raiding the SSA Huntington Office, brought the case to the attention of the public, prompting a Senate hearing in Washington, D.C., in October 2013. Griffith and Carver’s detailed testimonies about Conn and Daugherty, as well as the explosive testimonies of two former female employees of the social security lawyer, proved to be the hearing’s backbone. Furthermore, the involvement of Drs. Frederic Huffnagle and Alfred Adkins were revealed.
Conn, on the other hand, elected to plead the Fifth Amendment during the hearing and refused to testify. Later, investigations into the four men continued, while attorneys Ben Vernia and Mark Wohlander, both federal prosecutors, began representing the whistleblowers.
Despite having everything in place, things moved slowly, but Griffith and Carver’s efforts paid off when Conn, Daugherty, and Adkins were indicted in 2016. Charlie Andrus, Chief ALJ, was also charged with conspiring to retaliate against an informant.
Andrus stated in his plea deal that he became aware of Carver’s meetings with the OIG in 2011 and that he and Conn tried to get her fired by falsely accusing her of violating a work from home programme for SSA workers. They followed her and even tried to videotape her in a Walmart parking lot to do this. Carver was finally sentenced to six months in prison in August 2017 after Andrus pled guilty to the allegations.
Andrus apologised to Carver during his sentencing, and while she felt the term was insufficient in light of the pain she had endured, she was relieved that action had been taken. Daugherty was sentenced to four years in jail and ordered to pay restitution of more than $93 million in May 2017.
Conn accepted a plea deal in June 2017 but fled across the border six months later in Honduras. He was finally sentenced to 27 years in jail and $72,574,609 in compensation in September 2018.
What Has Happened to Sarah Carver and Jennifer Griffith and Where are They now?
Sarah Carver and Jennifer Griffith’s tireless quest for social justice and truth came to an end with Conn and his collaborators’ imprisonment, but their struggles were far from ended. Carver claimed in the series that she was only paid for the expenditures she incurred travelling back and forth from Washington, D.C. for the hearings.
Carver and Griffith also revealed that no government entity involved in the case has acknowledged them as whistleblowers, and that they are now jobless and without financial security. Conn and Daugherty’s whistleblower lawsuit was settled in April 2018, and they will receive a percentage of the money they are owed by the government, but only if they are paid.
Griffith, as far as we can tell, now lives in Flatwoods, Kentucky, and continues to promote Conn’s dissatisfied clients and other political causes on Twitter. Carver, on the other hand, is a frequent user of social media and is most likely based in South Point, Ohio.
Hopefully, these women will soon be recognised and rewarded for their significant contributions to the government and the general public.
