Ex-IRS Agent Denies Guilt

LOS ANGELES â€”  A former Internal Revenue Service agent pleaded not guilty Monday to federal charges that she embezzled $59,000 from taxpayers by depositing their payments into her own bank account.

Carolyn Henderson, 42, of San Diego, was fired in April from the IRS Laguna Niguel office after an internal investigation concluded that she had stolen dozens of checks. She now faces a Jan. 5 trial in U.S. District Court on 47 counts of theft of government property.

The indictment accuses her of taking checks from 21 individuals and three companies between March, 1991, and February, 1992. The combined counts carry a maximum penalty of 470 years in prison, $11.7 million in fines and restitution to the victims.

All the victims were late in paying their taxes, and some had had levies placed on their wages, bank accounts or properties as a result, the indictment said. To get their accounts straight, they mailed payments to Henderson or gave them to her directly while she worked at the customer service counter in Laguna Niguel.

Instead of crediting the payments to their IRS accounts, however, she deposited the money in her own checking account, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Nathan J. Hochman, who is prosecuting.

Henderson’s lawyer, Kathryn T. Leff of San Diego, declined to discuss the case in detail, but said it has been “entirely blown out of proportion.� Leff said that, during the period in question, Henderson was heavily medicated on drugs prescribed by her psychiatrist, and that it “might have played a role in her consciousness� of what went on.

A source close to the case said Henderson was able to deposit dozens of checks made out to the IRS into her personal bank account because she had once worked at the bank and had won the trust of bankers there. The deposits were made into an Orange County branch of a major bank.

Henderson’s alleged victims found themselves on the phone with the IRS for bewildering hours, trying to explain that they had paid the delinquent taxes, and were told no payment had been received.

Raycheal Warner of Laguna Niguel said she and her husband had to borrow money from their son to make ends meet after her $2,129 check to the IRS was never received.

The IRS already had garnished $800 from her husband’s wages because the couple was delinquent in paying their taxes, Warner said. When she went to the Laguna Niguel office in November, 1991, and gave the $2,129 check to Henderson, she was told that would take care of the problem, Warner said. But, a few months later, IRS collectors called and said no payment had been received.

“It put a damper on our lives,� Warner said. “We were being called by the IRS collection. It was stressful. I kept worrying, thinking where was I going to come up with another $2,000 to pay them.�

Warner and her husband still have received no word that their IRS account has been straightened out. She said the experience left her skeptical about the competence of the huge government agency that is entrusted with taxpayers’ money.

“You go in to the IRS trusting the people that are going to be handling your money,� Warner said. “She’s a revenue officer. I trusted her. If this happens, what’s going on with the rest of the IRS?�