An Internal Revenue Service tax examiner was arrested and charged with improperly accessing the tax records of celebrities and sports figures.
John Snyder, 56, was accused of misdemeanor charges of looking up information on 197 stars, including Eddie Albert, Kevin Bacon, Alec Baldwin, Timothy Bottoms, Chevy Chase, John Cleese, Portia De Rossi, Sally Field, Steffi Graf, coach Marvin Lewis, Penny Marshall, Randy Quaid, Tara Reid, Maura Tierney and Vanna White. He also checked information on ballplayers from the Cincinnati Reds and Chicago Cubs, as well as his next-door neighbor.
His job mainly involved business accounts and he did not have a legitimate reason to view the tax records of individuals, according to the complaint. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration was conducting a routine analysis to look for suspicious accesses by IRS employees when it discovered numerous unauthorized accesses by Snyder.
Snyder, a 17-year IRS employee, faces up to a year in jail, a $250,000 fine, and a year of supervised release if convicted. He was arraigned in the U.S. District Court in Covington, Ky., before he was freed on his own recognizance, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
