A Social Security chief administrative law judge pleaded guilty on June 13 to conspiring to retaliate against a former employee who was cooperating with investigators to uncover corruption.
Charlie Paul Andrus, 66, of Huntington, West Virginia, pleaded to a single count of conspiracy to retaliate against an informant in U.S. District for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
Serving as an administrative law judge, Andrus presided over disability claims cases for the Social Security Administration office in Huntington before being promoted to chief administrative law judge in 1997.
After federal agents went to the Huntingdon office on May 19, 2011, to seize evidence in a corruption investigation involving a Kentucky attorney— Eric Christopher Conn— and Administrative Law Judge David Black Daugherty, investigators said Andrus was demoted from his position.
Andrus admitted in court that the investigation, coupled with a Wall Street Journal article critical of the Huntington office, had embarrassed him and that he became aware that an SSA employee had been meeting with investigators.
The judge then concocted a plan with Conn to discredit the informant by filming them violating a teleworking program with the hopes of getting the employee fired.
An Associated Press story said that the pair mailed a video of the employee to the acting chief judge in August 2011.
Conn and Daugherty have been charged in an 18-count indictment that they schemed to obtain $600 million in bogus disability claims. Andrus will await sentencing as part of a plea deal.
