Growing disability fraud scheme crackdown nets 64-year-old man

ARNOLD, Mo. – Federal prosecutors say patients knew to visit a certain Arnold chiropractic office—in order to fake disabilities and get big payouts.

The clinic is now closed. It’s the former office of husband-and-wife chiropractors Thomas G. Hobbs and Vivian Carbone-Hobbs, who were sentenced to prison last year in a reported $20.7 million scheme.

Wednesday, another former patient pleaded guilty to disability fraud, in what federal prosecutors said cost the Social Security Administration $287,000 in that case alone.

It involves 64-year-old Richard Muehlfarth. He pleaded guilty to a scheme in which prosecutors say he paid chiropractors more than $18,000. The payments were reportedly to help him falsify medical records for him and his wife over the course of eight years.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Berry has prosecuted about a dozen cases just this year, tied to the same chiropractors.

She told us earlier this month, “It’s not over. We were able to identify over 90 individuals, over 90 patients.”

Defendant Muehlfarth cried as he acknowledged in court that he’d claimed he could not do basic chores and needed a cane. Federal investigators then reported putting him under surveillance and seeing him doing yard work.

The approximate dozen defendants who’ve pleaded guilty so far this year have admitted to stealing a total of $2,866,929 from Social Security and an additional $1,217,637 from private insurance companies.

The judge told defendant Muehlfarth that he could’ve been locked up on the spot. Instead, he’ll face sentencing later this year.

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