Former Alabama State Employee Sentenced for Identity Theft and Tax Fraud

Natacia Webster of Montgomery, Ala., was sentenced today to 50 months in prison for conspiracy, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced.  Webster had pleaded guilty to those charges in September 2012. She was also ordered to pay $113,000 in restitution and will serve three years on supervised release following her release from federal prison. 

According to her plea agreement, Webster had been an employee in the central records office of an Alabama state agency, which allowed her access to the personal identifying information of numerous individuals.  Webster stole identifying information from state databases and provided them to a co-conspirator, Melinda Clayton. Clayton would then use those stolen identities to file false federal tax returns that fraudulently claimed refunds. Clayton was sentenced earlier in the year to 61 months in prison. 

Kathryn Keneally, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Tax Division, commended the efforts of special agents of IRS - Criminal Investigation, who investigated the case, and Tax Division Trial Attorneys Jason H. Poole and Michael Boteler, who prosecuted the case with assistance from Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Brown and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Alabama.

Additional information about the Tax Division and its enforcement efforts may be found at www.justice.gov/tax .