An Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employee based out of Covington, 56-year-old John Snyder, pleaded guilty today to a misdemeanor charge of exceeding unauthorized computer access to obtain information from the Internal Revenue Service. Snyder admitted today that he improperly accessed the accounts of nearly 200 celebrities including former Cincinnati Reds players and Cincinnati Bengals Head Coach Marvin Lewis.
A criminal complaint was filed against Snyder in May and alleged that from 2003 until 2008, Snyder, an employee with the IRS since 1991, improperly accessed the IRS accounts of local sports figures and Hollywood actors such as Kevin Bacon, Alec Baldwin, Sally Field, Chevy Chase, Randy Quaid, and Tara Reid amongst others. Snyder also looked at five pedestrian accounts, including one belonging to his next door neighbor.
The Affidavit also states that the IRS possesses a data base that contains sensitive, personal and tax information on all tax payers. IRS employees are permitted to access the information for business purposes only. However, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) conducted a routine analysis to look for suspicious accesses from employees. The affidavit alleges his search resulted in the discovery of numerous suspected unauthorized accesses by Snyder, who works almost exclusively with business accounts as opposed to individual tax payer accounts.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Kentucky
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