WASHINGTON - A 46-year-old former employee of the U.S. Forest Service, Karen Burroughs, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for her involvement in a scheme in which she fraudulently claimed over a five-year period of approximately $282,134 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., was sentenced today by the Honorable Rosemary M. Collyer in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In addition to the prison term, the Court sentenced the defendant to three years of supervised release, and ordered her to make restitution of $282,134 to the Forest Service. Consistent with the terms of her plea agreement, Burroughs' employment with the Forest Service was terminated.

According to the government's evidence, Burroughs was employed by the Forest Service as a management analyst in the Office of Communication, which is located in Washington, D.C. Burroughs has been 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 from 2003 through 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 employee, 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 sentence, 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 handled this prosecution.