Original subtitles

In this episode of American Greed, attorney Eric Kahn is the king of

law. He was like the Pied Piper because people admired him so much because he

was larger than life. Everybody knew that if you needed your self -security.

Go to Eric Kahn. He won. He never lost.

A shameless self -promoter. You now have Mr.

Social Security on your side.

If you recall, Kahn makes millions getting disability payments for his

He had a Rolls Royce at one point. He would wear expensive suits.

But after government whistleblowers uncovered a half a billion dollars worth

lies... escalated in a way that we never could have imagined. Kahn turned

fugitive. Eric Kahn cut off his electronic monitoring anklet and fled

Where is Eric Kahn?

Leaving his desperate clients to face tragic consequences.

He never cared about these people. And then when all hell broke loose, he never

lifted a finger to help these people.

There's nothing you can do. Nothing can fix it.

Lexington, Kentucky.

On June 3rd, 2017, along a stretch of I -75, the Department of Probation

and Parole recovers a gray backpack.

Along with it, a severed electronic monitoring bracelet that's supposed to

wrapped around the ankle of attorney -turned -criminal Eric Kahn.

Kahn, once one of Eastern Kentucky's most flamboyant characters,

has just pled guilty to masterminding the largest Social Security fraud in U

history. He's been under house arrest, awaiting sentencing, and now he's

vanished into thin air.

We are looking for Eric Christopher Conn. We need him to face justice for

defrauding the U .S. taxpayer of more than $550 million in a

Social Security fraud scheme.

Clearly, he is desperate to escape punishment, and desperate people do

things.

Disability attorney Eric Kahn hails from Floyd County, in the heart of

Appalachia, quintessential Kentucky coal country.

The Industrial Revolution was powered by coal.

So for years and years and generations and generations, this region...

Doug Cole.

Kentucky largest coal producer in the country.

Eastern Kentucky where most of that coal is mined. There are people who are in

this region who know no other thing and would not do any other thing but mine

coal. In Kentucky they say mining coal is a boom or a bust business.

It's been a bust around here lately.

The decline of the coal industry has taken a toll on eastern Kentucky.

And by the early 2000s, nearly a quarter of its population lives beneath the

poverty line.

Some of those counties have lost more than two -thirds of their coal jobs.

So there's a lot of folks there who don't have much money.

And traditionally, disability has been a key source of income for folks.

And there are a lot of folks who would qualify because you have a lot of

people in the coal mines.

For disability attorney Eric Kahn, opportunity abounds.

Kahn has become a regional celebrity since he opened his law office in

in 1993 in a trailer next to his mother's house.

In the years since, he's come to be a master of self -promotion.

Eric Kahn was probably the P .T. Barnum of the legal profession.

You could not go anywhere in eastern Kentucky without seeing one of his

billboards, big, bright yellow billboard.

With a life -size mannequin of Eric Kahn sitting on top of it?

He was the first lawyer who did saturation lawyer advertising.

And there came a day, a day unlike any other in your life, American working

heroes suddenly unable to work. Every single billboard, every single TV

commercial, every single radio commercial.

And not only was it saturation advertising, but it was colorful,

I would say appalling.

Kahn hires beautiful women known around town as the Kahn Hotties. Their job? To

appear at events donning tight -fitting tank tops with Kahn's phone number and

moniker Mr. Social Security emblazoned across their chests.

The Kahn Hotties are accompanied by life -sized replicas of Eric Kahn, cardboard

cutouts of Eric Kahn, or sometimes even Eric Kahn himself.

A source told me that he was sort of a geek in high school, a kid who maybe was

bullied or at least not one of the popular kids by any stretch of the

imagination.

She believed that what drove him was proving to everybody that he was really

better than them or smarter than them or more successful than them in the end.

Featuring Mr. Social Security Eric C. Kahn.

Commercials like this one for Kahn Services dominate local airwaves.

Come with Eric C. Kahn to the future.

3D, it's here.

In one outlandish episode, Eric Kahn claims to be the first attorney to ever

create a 3D commercial, complete with instructions on how to make 3D glasses.

Fellow Floyd County attorney Ned Pellersdorf cringes at Kahn's antics.

It was just demeaning, made us look like hucksters.

It was just on such a low level.

But some might say genius.

Mr. Kahn was a very intelligent person.

We believe that he was a member of Mensa. As a matter of fact, he liked to

that he was. And I talked to a couple of people who said that was true, as far

as they could determine that he was, in fact, the IQ level of a genius.

Kahn's approach translates into big bucks.

Eric liked to show off how much he was worth.

He had a home in Pikeville.

He paid $1 .5 million in cash for it.

He had a Rolls Royce.

He would wear expensive suits.

Just flashy, just a very flashy person.

He was pretty conspicuously wealthy.

In 2010, Kahn spends more than $500 ,000 to install a 19 -foot

replica of the Lincoln Memorial in the parking lot of his law office.

He holds a special ceremony for its unveiling.

He said that he had the statute commissioned because essentially he said

wanted to do something special and help put Stanville on the map.

I think it was about promoting him.

I think the statue was about as big as his ego.

Kahn demands attention, and attention is what he gets in the form of thousands

of clients.

People would line up.

There'd be 50, 60 cars in the parking lot as early as 8, 30, 9 o 'clock in the

morning. Yeah, he was like the Pied Piper because people admired him so much

because he was larger than life, and he was able to get people Social Security

and these benefits.

Well, I think at the end, clients went to him because he won. He never lost.

I mean, why would you not go to him? You'd be crazy not to.

For Emma Burchett's husband, Leroy Burchett, going to Cannes is a last

effort. A printing press crewman and former furniture delivery truck driver,

Burchett is plagued with debilitating pain following two surgeries to fuse

discs in his neck that have slipped into his spine.

He tries to keep working, but according to his wife, a neurosurgeon tells him if

he continues and injures it again, he'll be paralyzed.

You know, it's hard for any man, I would imagine, especially a man who's a

father, you know, to have to succumb to it.

all of a sudden not being the breadwinner for your family anymore.

Nobody wants to go on the draw.

Sometimes you have to. I mean, if you can't provide for your family, there's

other way.

Burchett applies for Social Security Disability Insurance and is turned down.

That's where Eric Kahn comes in.

They say you can't get your Social Security disability.

Hmm. Well, they don't know. You now have Mr. Social Security on your side.

Burchard has seen Khan's commercials like this one. He knows a lot of people

have gotten their benefits through the Khan Law Office.

You can't live in this area and not know about him. Everywhere you turn, there's

a billboard.

He was Mr.

Social Security. Everybody knew that if you needed your Social Security, go to

Eric Khan.

According to Emma, Leroy goes to Kahn's law office, now a whole series of

trailers in Stanville. He never meets Kahn, but he fills out paperwork and

shortly after is scheduled to see a doctor at the law practice.

They had a little room set up in the back, and the doctor was back there in

examining room.

Just four months after his visit to Kahn's office, Burchard and his family

received their first disability check.

We were tickled to death.

It was our way of surviving. It was, you know, it's how we made our ends meet.

30 -year -old Jason Damron also seeks disability benefits through Khan.

Damron never wanted to depend on the government either, but it's what he has

do to support his family.

I don't want to be sick. I don't want to tell the world I'm disabled.

I had plans. I, you know.

I wanted to build something in my life. But recent open -heart surgery, coupled

with seizures, migraines, and a progressive birth defect in his hands

has left him unable to hold a steady job.

At the suggestion of a family friend, Damron makes an appointment and goes to

Khan's offices.

Oh, wow. And, you know, I can't believe you haven't got it already. You know,

you've got this going on and this and this and this.

And... Oh, no, this should not be a problem.

A few months later, Damron gets a call to come back into the law offices for a

medical exam.

Looked like any doctor's office you've ever been in. Cotton swabs in a glass

container and tongue depressors and sat on the table and he, you know, gave me a

brief physical, listened to my heart and standing and lifting and I left the

office and I was, that was weird, but okay, you know, man's gotta... 50 -foot

Abraham Lincoln in his parking lot, so I guess he can afford to have an in

-house doctor on staff. That's what I assumed. I had no clue.

Like Burchett, Damron never meets Kahn himself.

The truth is, I've met with hundreds of Kahn clients, and I've yet to meet the

first Kahn client who ever met Mr. Kahn.

But none of that matters when Damron receives his first check from the Social

Security Administration.

I felt human.

I felt able.

It was a relief.

I knew if I got hungry, I could go get myself a meal. If my kid wanted to hang

out, if I only put $5 in the gas tank and took him to the park, I could do

For clients like Damron and Burchett, Khan is nothing short of a hero.

But how is he winning so many cases?

Does he just have a magic touch?

Or could Khan be living up to his name?

When American Greed returns, whistleblowers uncover sinister secrets.

It escalated in a way that we never could have imagined.

You've worked hard all your life.

You've been through hell and back just to put food on the table, and now you

just can't do it anymore.

Thanks to an in -your -face marketing campaign, by 2010, attorney Eric Kahn is

the third highest paid disability lawyer in the nation.

He advertised he had a 99 % success rate.

The other Social Security lawyers were continuously griping, Eric's getting on

my business, and he's winning all these cases.

Over the course of his career, Kahn secures $550 million in lifetime

for his clients.

And for every case Kahn wins, he's paid by the Social Security Administration,

the U .S. government, up to $6 ,000.

In 2010 alone, Kahn's firm rakes in $3 .9 million in payments from Social

Security.

Kahn's staggering success allows him to take overseas trips to exotic locales.

He had gone to Central America. He had gone to South America. He had gone to

Southeast Asia. He had traveled extensively around the world.

There was some information in one court hearing that he had crossed

international borders more than 100 times in 10 years.

Often, he does not return alone.

Kahn has had at least half a dozen wives.

And he was quite the womanizer.

women from all over the world.

He was hardly ever in Floyd County. Most of the time, he was in Thailand or

South America, marrying and, you know, summarily divorcing various foreign

women. He introduced me to this woman. I don't remember her name.

I said, hello, and how are you? Nice to see you.

And he says, don't bother to talk to us. He doesn't understand any English.

Typically, Khan married much younger women.

He was in his late 40s, early 50s.

Brides were early to mid -20s.

And typically they lasted almost no time.

The longest one that I remember was about a year and a half.

And some lasted just a few weeks, a few months.

One marriage lasted one day.

He was in the Caribbean on vacation, married a woman there in the Caribbean,

brought her back here.

When he got home to Kentucky with her, he sent her back.

Eric Kahn is living a charmed, if odd, life.

But 85 miles away from the Kahn Law Complex in Huntington, West Virginia,

employees at the Social Security Office of Disability Adjudication and Review,

or ODAR, have started to notice some peculiarities in the way Kahn's cases

being handled.

In 2006, Master Docket Clerk Jennifer Griffith is perplexed when disability

cases that she's supposed to intake and assign to judges are disappearing.

I was getting in trouble for information not being input correctly and cases not

being documented properly.

But I really couldn't figure out exactly how that was happening initially.

When Griffith takes it upon herself to start looking for the cases, she

discovers they've been intercepted by administrative law judge...

David B. Doherty. Basically, Judge Doherty was going into our system and

changing the status of a case and taking possession of a case.

All of the cases that Doherty is taking have one thing in common.

They're cases of claimants represented by Eric C. Kahn.

Griffith's colleague, Senior Case Technician Sarah Carver, herself has

to notice some unusual patterns that seem to connect Kahn and Doherty.

Normally we would only schedule for a judge in one day, five cases, and Judge

Daugherty would hand you a pencil itinerary and it would have sometimes up

names. And the hearings were scheduled instead of an hour apart or an hour and

15 minutes apart, they were scheduled like 15 minutes apart.

And nearly every decision Daugherty issues for a con client is a favorable

Some judges might have a 60%.

favorable, where there's some judges that have a 30%. It was unheard of that

judge would issue all favorable decisions.

Carver and Griffith feel compelled to report to their supervisors what they've

seen, but they say the response is not at all what they expected.

Social Security heavily promotes this idea of see something, say something.

I just simply thought that they would see the issue, they would take care of

issue, and it would be done.

I never in a million years imagined that their response would be to become

angry. But according to Griffith and Carver, that is exactly what happens.

When I would question management regarding Eric Kahn, in turn management

question me as to my work status and why I would have time enough to pull out

those stats or to look at those reports.

They would question my work.

Over time, Griffith and Carver say the more they question the relationship

between Doherty and Kahn, the worse the retaliation.

I was followed. I had job retraining. I stopped getting promotions.

The best example is when my group supervisor followed me around and timed

action that I did within a day, including going to the bathroom.

It escalated in a way that we never could have imagined.

Carver and Griffith say pressure on the office from the Social Security

Administration to move quickly through cases is to blame.

Judge Daugherty was a big contributing factor to our office's success.

Judge Daugherty would hear 15 to 20, maybe even 30 cases a day for Mr. Khan,

times that times five days a week.

I think interrupting the conspiracy, collusion, whatever you want to call it,

between Eric Conn and Judge Doherty meant a significant decrease in that

office's numbers.

According to Griffith, the stress of her work environment takes its toll on her

health. In 2007, she makes the difficult decision to leave.

It's really hard to walk away from this kind of job. But at the same time, your

health is more important. And my physician said if you do not do

your stress level, you're going to die.

Coming up on American Greed.

While Carver and Griffith feel their own supervisors don't listen to them, the

Wall Street Journal does.

Hey, maybe there's an explanation of why this guy is winning 99 % of his cases.

In eastern Kentucky, attorney Eric Kahn, a .k .a. Mr.

Social Security, looms larger than life. But in May 2011, after a tip from

someone with knowledge of the Huntington, West Virginia, ODAR office,

Street Journal publishes an article that questions whether Kahn could be living

up to his name.

Its main sources?

SSA employees Jennifer Griffith and Sarah Carver.

The article spotlights the suspicious relationship between Eric Kahn and

Huntington, West Virginia, disability judge David B. Doherty, who seems to be

deciding favorably all of Kahn's cases.

I vividly remember when the Wall Street Journal came out because it was a red

flag.

That, hey, maybe there's an explanation of why this guy is winning 99 % of his

cases. Following the report, Doherty is placed on administrative leave and

eventually retires.

Khan goes on damage control.

Social Security employee turned whistleblower Sarah Carver remembers

restaurant one day and seeing a stranger across the bar.

I saw a gentleman videotaping me with his phone.

And at first, we just kind of put our menus up to where he couldn't see, and

was still taping, and it was obvious what he was doing. And I even held my

up like I was videotaping him back.

you know, just more or less making a joke of it at the time, and he left.

That's when it hit me that there's something up. There's something going

That something, Carver will later find out, is part of a retaliation plan

hatched by Kahn and Chief Administrative Law Judge Charlie Andrus, meant to

silence Carver.

And it was their plan to have an investigator follow me.

and try to show that I was not working at home on my work -at -home day.

And they would try to use that to get me fired, and in essence that would

discredit any testimony that I was to give in this case.

According to testimony from former Kahn employees, someone from the Huntington

-Odar office calls Kahn's office with an alert every time Carver is scheduled to

work from home.

Carver is tailed for months, both during and after work hours.

I mean, they terrorize Sarah.

Imagine, if you will, realizing that you, your children, your house is being

stalked. And the reason they're stalking you is because they've got to destroy

you. It makes me, even to this day, feel real paranoid.

It was such an invasion of privacy that this man was following me, but not only

following me, but following my friends.

my co -workers and my family.

Judge Andrus will later plead guilty and serve six months for retaliation

against a witness.

He and Kahn aren't able to get any incriminating evidence against Carver,

the evidence against Kahn is mounting.

Both the U .S. Senate and the Social Security Administration Office of

General launch investigations.

Other federal agencies, including the FBI, later join in.

We found several instances where there was a check that Eric Kahn wrote for

cash. Then there were phone calls or a phone call between Doherty and Kahn.

And then there was cash deposited into Doherty's bank account.

The payments average anywhere from $8 ,000 to $14 ,000 a month from 2004 to

2011.

But as things come crumbling down, Kahn's not going to let the government

media have the last word.

I got a question for you.

For nearly 20 years, he's poured his blood, sweat, and tears into building

practice from the ground up. In July 2011, Kahn releases a campy commercial

save face.

That may not be the story you've heard from those who don't know the facts.

But hasn't anyone said something about you that isn't true?

And so he made that commercial where he's shown driving this expensive car

then he pulls up to the office late at night.

Eric. And there's a woman who says, we need you, Eric.

We need you back.

I never left.

You pretty much had to understand that he knew he was under investigation and

this was a response.

When American Greed returns, commercials offer little comfort when Kahn's

clients get cut off.

And he pulled a gun out from behind his back and he said, I can't take this.

Behind the doors of his law compound, attorney Eric Kahn knows he's under

investigation.

Kahn hires a shredding company to destroy 26 ,000 pounds of documents.

Kahn ordered hard drives destroyed, and we also had reports from witnesses that

they made a huge bonfire in the back of the office where they burned records of

his clients.

And things are about to get worse for the Kahn man.

In October 2013, after a two -year investigation, the U .S. Senate holds

hearings examining nefarious activity at the Kahn law firm.

The hearing will come to order.

Kahn has no choice but to go to Washington.

But the panel of senators is not going to get anything out of Kahn himself.

I respectfully assert my...

Constitutional right not to testify here today, sir. Raise your right hand,

please. Unfortunately for Khan, Social Security whistleblowers Sarah Carver and

Jennifer Griffith are there to testify, too.

These women saw the disability programs being exploited and were brave enough to

bring their story to the committee.

It was astounding to me that not only was there what we reported, but there

was... A whole other layer of stuff that we didn't know anything about.

Joining Carver and Griffith are former con employees Jamie Sloan and Melinda

Martin -Hicks.

According to testimony from Sloan and Hicks, every month from 2006 to 2011,

administrative law judge David B. Doherty calls the con law office with a

of con clients that he is ready to approve.

The list comes to be known as the DB list.

After Doherty's nickname, DB.

He would give me the names of the individuals, the first five numbers of

social security number, and whether he wanted a mental or physical evaluation

performed on the client.

Evaluations are performed by one of the doctors that Khan has in his pocket.

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.

Kahn's doctors sign off on one of a handful of templates called Residual

Functioning Capacity Forms, or RFCs, that Kahn's firm has prefabricated and

arbitrarily assigned to claimants, despite their actual conditions.

All he had to do was put in the client's name and then the examining physician,

and these forms would already have all the disability marks checked on it.

But while false forms are submitted with their claims, many of Kahn's clients

are in fact truly disabled.

They have no idea that Kahn has used fraudulent means to win their legitimate

cases. And when Kahn is exposed as a fraud, the collateral damage is

devastating.

In May of 2015,

The Burchett family receives a letter from the Social Security Administration.

And I just about hit my knees. It said that all of his benefits were going to

stop, which meant no medical coverage, no prescription coverage, absolutely

nothing.

And I read the letter to him, and he just looks at me, and he says, well,

does that mean? And I said, it means they've taken your Social Security away.

So my husband's just in complete panic because, you know, everything's gone.

He's just in complete panic.

He said, I don't know what I'm going to do. What are we going to do? The Office

of the Inspector General notified the Social Security Administration.

It's the same notice that 900 of Khan's clients receive.

Therefore, we are suspending your benefits while we redetermine whether

entitled to benefits.

No warning. No, you know, brace yourself.

No nothing. It's just... Your livelihood's gone.

Have a nice day.

Then it was panic.

Emma Burchard's husband, Leroy, in addition to his physical ailments, also

suffers from depression.

With the loss of benefits, he falls into a deep decline.

He wouldn't leave the house. He wouldn't get out of bed. He said, I don't want

to know.

I don't want to know what's going on because nothing's going to make this

better. Nothing's going to fix this.

It's a little over a week after they've received the letter.

He got up that morning, and it was like he was a totally different person.

He came to the house yelling and cussing at me and cussing at the kids.

He was throwing things and kicking things.

He was just crazy.

I opened the door, and he was sitting on the edge of the bed with a gun.

I took that gun away from him.

And he said the same words to me again. He said, you're not going to stop this.

Nothing can fix this.

He stormed back outside.

My kids were standing right there.

And he said, I can't take this.

And he pulled another gun out from behind his back.

And he shot himself in the chin.

Following the letters, Floyd County Attorney Ned Pildersdorf is flooded with

calls from desperate con clients.

At that point, there was widespread panic in this community.

We scheduled an emergency meeting of the Floyd Bar Association.

I immediately filed a motion, and federal court tried to get a court order

stop, to reinstate these people's benefits.

And the word got out that suicides are contagious.

Another con client takes her life the day after Birchit.

Pillersdorf, with the help of Congressman Hal Rogers, is able to get

temporarily reinstated.

But a total of 1 ,500 claimants must go through redetermination hearings.

150 volunteer lawyers from around the country pitch in.

But Eric Kahn goes radio silent.

Kahn had a brilliant business design.

Set up shop, do a lot of advertising in an area where we have a lot of people

who are truly disabled.

Bribe the judge, a corrupt judge.

He made millions.

And then when all hell broke loose...

He never lifted a finger to help these people.

Kahn's clients are paying dearly for his fraud.

When American Greed returns, it's all about to catch up to Eric Kahn.

But when justice comes knocking at his door... The Federal Bureau of

Investigation confirms Stanville attorney Eric C. Kahn is considered to

the run as a fugitive from justice.

The 19 -foot Honest Abe statue presiding over the Eric C. Kahn Law Office is

about to take on an ironic twist.

In April of 2016, Kahn is indicted on 18 counts.

He stands accused of bilking U .S. taxpayers out of more than half a

dollars in lifetime Social Security benefits for his clients by bribing a

and falsifying medical forms.

Judge David B. Daugherty is indicted on seven counts, accused of taking money

from Khan in exchange for granting Social Security disability to all of

clients. Prosecutors call it the largest Social Security fraud in U .S. history.

I think we were all elated. Finally, after all these years of hollering and

screaming to get something done, the indictment finally came in.

Daugherty, who did not respond to an interview request, pleads guilty to two

counts of accepting illegal gratuities and admits taking $609 ,000 in bribe

money. He's eventually sentenced to four years in order to pay $93 million in

restitution. And in March 2017, after nearly a year of negotiations, Kahn

guilty as well to a two -count information of stealing from the

paying illegal gratuities.

Whatever else you think about Eric Kahn, he's a smart guy.

obviously a lawyer by training, the reality of what he could potentially get

terms of a life sentence, Trump, whatever ego might have been involved

Kahn's sentencing is scheduled for July.

Until then, he's been placed on home detention with an electronic monitoring

bracelet wrapped around his ankle.

Part of the deal, Kahn will testify against psychologist Alfred Bradley

who's accused of signing false medical forms on Kahn's behalf.

On Friday, June 2nd, Kahn is given permission to travel to Lexington to

with lawyers and prepare his testimony for Atkins' trial.

He was cooperative, he was in a good mood, talkative, but gave no indication

that something was getting ready to happen.

But that is the last time anyone saw Eric Kahn.

Eric Kahn, the main defendant in this case, cut off his electronic monitoring

anklet, and fled custody.

Friday evening, the Department of Probation and Parole receives an alert

Kahn's monitor has stopped transmitting.

They locate it the next day.

It's been severed and wrapped in metallic signal -blocking fabric in a

on the side of I -75 in Lexington.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed Stanville attorney Eric C.

considered to be on the run as a fugitive from justice.

He was going to run.

I mean, those of us that knew Eric, we all knew from the very outset when he

released on home monitoring on an ankle bracelet that it was just a matter of

time. Eric Kahn being a narcissist, spent most of his life as a world

It was a totally predictable event.

The FBI puts Kahn on its most wanted list, offering a $20 ,000 reward for

information on his whereabouts.

Then the emails start arriving.

A week after Khan's disappearance, Lexington Herald leader reporter Bill

receives a message from someone purporting to be Khan.

Having a fugitive send you an email is so bizarre that I didn't believe it.

My initial reaction was that this was a police officer, an FBI agent, somebody

that I know pulling a prank on me.

But this is no prank.

Then from an untraceable address, it's the first of several messages that Kahn

sends on the run.

I thought it was nuts, but I also thought it was a great example of Kahn's

I mean, even though he's on the run, he still wants to try to control the story.

He wants to try to get his side of the story out.

The first email has conditions for Kahn's surrender.

One of his conditions was he wanted the FBI to say that he wasn't dangerous.

He said I would never hurt anybody and that he wanted them to confirm that he

wasn't dangerous.

And then there was another email where he asked me to stop using this

unflattering mug shot of him.

And he said, you know, I think you've made your point. You know, I didn't look

great in that shot. And he asked us to begin using another photograph of him.

In the emails, Khan claims he flew out of the U .S. the day of his

using a fake passport and is hiding out in a country without an extradition

treaty. But that proves to be a red herring.

On June 4th, two days after vanishing, security cameras capture images of Khan

at a gas station and a Walmart in New Mexico.

The following day, the Luna County, New Mexico Sheriff's Department find a truck

suspected to be Khan's escape vehicle abandoned near the Mexico border.

But there is no sign of Khan himself.

It seems he is long gone.

And I was frankly convinced they would have a hard time finding Khan. It took

years for the FBI to find Mafia hitman Whitey Bulger.

Khan's smarter than Whitey Bulger.

Next on American Greed, see how a beach town, pepperoni pizza, and a mask swap

team mean Kahn's life on the lam is about to end.

He did not look happy to be back.

Eric.

We need you back.

I never left.

Six years later, attorney Eric Kahn's 2011 commercial is now the punchline of

jokes. Contrary to one of his more popular advertisements, he lived.

Khan has successfully evaded the FBI and remained a fugitive for months.

We need Eric Khan to face justice.

We need him to come back and be accountable for his actions.

While on the lam, he's sentenced in absentia to 12 years in prison in order

pay $170 million in restitution for orchestrating the largest Social

fraud in U .S. history.

Psychologist Alfred Bradley Atkins is convicted of fraud and making false

statements and sentenced to 25 years for his role in the scheme, despite the

absence of key witness Kahn. Just putting aside the $550 million in

loss that the government could have suffered because of him, the damage that

did to eastern Kentucky and to the citizens, we had to bring him in. He had

face justice for what he did.

Three months after Kahn's disappearance, his employee, Curtis Wyatt, is indicted

for aiding Kahn's escape.

The indictment alleges a plan a year in the making and accuses Wyatt of securing

Kahn's escape vehicle and making pedestrian crossings into Mexico to test

security. Wyatt eventually pleads guilty to one count of conspiracy.

Kahn's whereabouts becomes the subject of much speculation around eastern

Kentucky.

It was an opportunistic idea that I came up with to create a betting pool that

said, where is Eric Kahn?

And all the money went to the animal shelter.

It was interesting, the overwhelming amount of money was bet on that he's

in Kentucky, and people would always come up to him and say, well, he always

said he never left.

Nobody bet on Honduras.

On December 2, 2017, in the coastal town of La Ceiba, Honduras, a middle -aged

Caucasian man sits down at a pizza hut.

for a meal of pepperoni pizza and Azteca soup.

When he emerges, a mass Honduran SWAT team brandishing machine guns awaits and

takes into custody one Eric Christopher Kahn. It's six months to the day after

he fled.

It does seem kind of an anticlimactic end after being on the run for six

to be arrested coming out of a pizza hut.

Somebody said it could only have been better if it had been at a Kentucky

Chicken.

Three days later, a government plane lands at Bluegrass Airport in Lexington,

Kentucky. FBI agents are there to greet a frail -looking Khan and haul him off

to Find Me, Face the Music.

When they brought him off the plane at the airport, he looked a little bit

befuddled. Not exactly confused, but kind of bewildered.

He did not look happy to be back.

Make it sort of safe, Mr.

Khan.

How does it feel to be back?

Today, I'm pleased to announce that Mr. Kahn is in custody. As promised, Mr.

Kahn will now be held accountable for his actions, the people he deceived, and

the lives he shattered.

Kahn is now at the Grayson County Detention Center in Litchfield,

beginning his 12 -year sentence.

Later this year, he will go on trial for charges related to his escape.

He is pled not guilty.

And because he violated his plea deal by absconding, He remains charged on all

counts from the initial fraud indictment.

That trial is set for early next year.

If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

He thinks he's smarter than everybody else, and I think that was his downfall.

He made a lot of mistakes as a result of thinking that nobody would ever catch

him.

In a letter to American Greed, Kahn writes, I once had money to fly around

world, rent entire clubs, drive Rolls Royce, and so much more.

Now I am sitting in a cell having to write letters on tissue paper.

The irony or poetic justice of my situation does not escape me.

I hope others can learn not to make the mistakes I did.

Around eastern Kentucky, Eric Kahn's flashy billboards are all but gone.

But the memory of his con job will haunt those who live here for generations to

come. When he was caught, there was that little ha -ha moment that, you know,

karma. After his hearing, Jason Damron's benefits are not reinstated.

Instead, he gets an $87 ,000 bill from the Social Security Administration for

back pay.

Khan's capture makes little difference.

You know, everybody wants that.

Self -satisfying vengeance when they feel they've been wronged or hurt. I got

that for a moment.

But then it just fell back to reality of, what's it going to change?

Attorney Ned Pillarsdorf is still fighting to get Social Security benefits

restored to 800 of Khan's clients.

He posts Eric Khan fiasco updates to his Facebook page several times a week.

Mental health professionals said Ned...

People commit suicide when they think they're being abandoned.

The Eric Kahn fiasco updates I post on my Facebook page, one of the main

I do this has been really, number one, suicide prevention.

Number two, to let these people know what's going on and to let the people

they're not being abandoned.

2 ,000 more Kahn clients are being notified that they'll be put through

hearings.

For the Burchett family, life will never be the same.

No matter what happens, my children are going to grow up without their father.

Neither of my four girls are ever going to walk down the aisle without their

father or daddy.

And it was all because of him.

I could care less what happens.

The Christian in me cares about his soul.

But the human side in me tells me that he ought to burn in hell for what he's

put people through.

On the next American Greed, a famous musician scores big in a heartless

scam. Money was being taken from these charities and it was going to line his

own pocket. American Greed, coming up next.

CNBC, get yours.