Washington, D.C. – A 46-year-old employee of the U.S. Forest Service, Karen Burroughs, has pled guilty to a charge of conversion of government money for her involvement in a scheme in which she fraudulently claimed over a five-year period more than $280,000 in overtime compensation for hours she did not work, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor and Special Agent-in-Charge Brian Haaser, U.S. Department of Agriculture ("USDA"), Office of the Inspector General ("OIG"), announced today.

Burroughs, currently residing in the 5000 block of 12th Street, NE, Washington, D.C., entered her guilty plea today before the Honorable Rosemary M. Collyer in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. When Burroughs is sentenced later this year, she faces up to 10 years of imprisonment, but is likely to receive 18 to 24 months under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. As part of her plea agreement, she agreed also to resign from the Forest Service.

"When government workers, such as Ms. Burroughs, fleece the federal payroll because of their own personal greed, their egregious conduct undermines the public's confidence and trust that its government is providing honest services to its taxpayers," said U.S. Attorney Taylor.

"This is one of the larger fraud cases involving employee compensation at USDA that we have investigated in the Washington, D.C. area," stated USDA-OIG Special Agent-in-Charge Haaser.

According to the government's evidence, Burroughs was employed by the Forest Service as a management analyst in the Office of Communication, with her office located in Washington, D.C. Burroughs was employed with the Forest Service since August of 2001. Part of Burroughs' job responsibilities in the Office of Communications was to run reports for employee pay and office expenditures.

In about 2003, Burroughs started fraudulently claiming overtime for weekends and holidays for time she did not work. When an employee filled out time and attendance reports, he or she was then required to send the report electronically to his or her supervisor for approval. Burroughs, instead of sending her time and attendance report to her supervisor, sent hers electronically to an employee ("individual #1) who Burroughs supervised, but did not know about the fraud being committed by Burroughs. Once Burroughs sent her time and attendance report to individual #1's computer, Burroughs went to individual #1's computer and fraudulently noted it had been approved by a supervisor. Once Burroughs's time and attendance report were noted as approved, they were forwarded electronically to the National Finance Center in the State of Louisiana. The Finance Center then forwarded to Burroughs the resulting pay, including that for the fraudulent overtime claims. For the period in or about 2003 through on or about July 3, 2008, the amount of fraudulent overtime claims by Burroughs totaled approximately $282,134.

Burroughs's true supervisor did not become aware of her fraud because of apparent confusion between two supervisors as to who was responsible for reviewing and approving Burroughs's time and attendance reports and neither ever saw the electronic or paper copies of Burroughs's reports. Although Burroughs was responsible for keeping the paper copies of the time and attendance reports in folders for each Office of Communication employees, Burroughs never placed any of her own time and attendance reports in her assigned folder.

On July 10, 2008, Burroughs was interviewed by law enforcement agents regarding this matter. She admitted that she knew that claiming overtime for time that she did not work was illegal and expressed remorse.

In announcing today's guilty plea, U.S. Attorney Taylor and USDA-OIG Special Agent-in-Charge Haaser praised the hard work of the investigative agents involved in this matter, especially USDA-OIG Senior Special Agent James Knorr. They also acknowledged the efforts of Legal Assistant Lisa Robinson, as well as Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Butler, who is handling this prosecution.