Dameia O. Smith was convicted earlier this year on charges of using the IRS's confidential taxpayer database to identify and threaten a witness against him, according to a report by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

According to the article, witnesses said Smith logged in to an IRS computer a week before a preliminary hearing for robbery charges against him and obtained the victim's address and other personal information, The Inquirer reported last week.

He is the first IRS worker in the country prosecuted for felony use of confidential taxpayer information, The Inquirer said. Smith was also convicted of robbery, using a firearm in a crime, soliciting the murder of a federal witness, and attempted murder, according to the newspaper report. U.S District Judge Jan E. DuBois sentenced 28-year-old Smith to a no-parole prison term.

Smith reportedly was fired in April of 1999 from his job as a tax-examining clerk at the IRS regional center in the Northeast, after officials discovered that he had been arrested earlier on a stolen gun charge, The Inquirer said.

"Smith denies, denies adamantly, that he committed any of the crimes for which he was convicted," defense lawyer Stephen P. Patrizio said, according to the report. Patrizio said he would appeal.

-- SmartPros News Staff

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