TAMPA (AP) -
A former central Florida police officer has been sentenced to nearly 6 1/2 years in prison for accessing official computers to assist in a tax fraud scheme.
Federal prosecutors in Tampa said Wednesday that 37-year-old Dana Brown, a former officer in Ocala, also has to pay more than $874,000 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service. He was sentenced to six years and five months for conspiracy to make false claims, aggravated identity theft and exceeding authorized access to a protected computer.
Prosecutors said Brown, for a 5 percent cut, accessed state driver's license details in a scheme to fraudulently get income tax refunds.
He pleaded guilty to the charges in December.
