Two dozen Internal Revenue Service workers in Tennessee have been accused of stealing unemployment and other benefits while fully employed.
On Thursday, 13 of the workers were indicted on federal charges that they lied to get unemployment, food stamps, welfare, and housing vouchers. Eleven more were indicted on state charges of theft greater than $1,000, a class D felony, reports
The Tennessean.
All together the accused are charged with receiving more than $250,000 in government benefits.
“You’ve got these employees that are taking advantage of the system that they are so intimate with it by virtue of their jobs, “ Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirech told the newspaper.
“It’s doubly frustrating, ” she added. ”
According to the Tennessean, the indictments accuse the 24 workers of fraudulently obtaining the benefits between 2006 and the end of 2012. Each of the 13 employees charged with multiple counts of false statements face up to five years in prison.
“According to the allegations in the indictment, while these IRS employees were supposed to be serving the public, they were instead brazenly stealing from law-abiding American taxpayers,” U.S. Attorney Edward Stanton III, who oversees federal prosecutions in West Tennessee, said in a statement.
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