LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — A former chief regional Social Security judge has been sentenced to prison for scheming to retaliate against an employee who blew the whistle on alleged fraud by a Kentucky lawyer.
The Lexington Herald-Leader reports Charlie Paul Andrus was sentenced Monday to six months in federal prison.
Andrus pleaded guilty last year to conspiring with disability lawyer Eric Conn to interfere with a person's employment. Conn — at the center of a nearly $600 million Social Security fraud case — disappeared this past June.
After serving six months in prison, Andrus will be on home detention for two months.
Andrus apologized to Sarah Carver, a woman who formerly worked in the Huntington, West Virginia, Social Security office and was the subject of the retaliation.
Andrus was once chief administrative law judge in the Huntington office.