Former IRS employee sentenced for $326K fraud scheme

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - A former IRS employee has been sentenced in federal court in Missouri two years and six months in prison in a $326,000 fraudulent tax refund scheme.

The U.S. attorney's office says that 39-year-old Demetria Michele Brown, of Birmingham, Alabama, also was ordered Monday to pay restitution to the state of Missouri and the IRS.

Brown pleaded guilty last year to two counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. The former Fairview Heights, Illinois, woman admitted to using stolen identities to submit hundreds of fraudulent tax returns from 2008 to 2011 while working at an IRS office in St. Louis.

Prosecutors said that although Brown had access to taxpayers' personally identifiable information through her job, she used other "illicit" sources to obtain the identities she used.