Nelsonville off the hook for nearly $400k in IRS penalties from former deputy auditor fraud

After months of negotiations, the Internal Revenue Service has relieved the City of Nelsonville's nearly $400,000 debt stemming from the former deputy auditor’s theft in office.

The IRS agreed to relieve the city of $382,761.11 in penalties and interest the city incurred by former Deputy Auditor Stephanie Wilson’s scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the city, City Auditor Taylor Sappington said Monday.

“[The negotiations] involved numerous hours of phone calls, conference calls, sitting on hold, tons and tons and stacks of paperwork — I’ve got a whole drawer full of it,” he said.

Shortly after Sappington took office as Nelsonville city auditor in January 2020, discovered "irregularities in the payroll and direct deposit reports” that he reported to Athens County Prosecuting Attorney Keller Blackburn. Wilson, of Stewart, was indicted in February 2020 on felony charges of tampering with records, forgery, telecommunications fraud and theft in office for criminal activity between January 2016 and February 2020. She pleaded guilty to those charges in December 2020; in April of this year, Athens County Common Pleas Court Judge George McCarthy sentenced her to four years and 11 months in prison and ordered to pay nearly $214,000 in restitution to the city.

Read more: https://www.athensnews.com/news/nelsonville-off-the-hook-for-nearly-400k-in-irs-penalties-from-former-deputy-auditor-fraud/article_fb67a406-35d3-11ec-9db0-d375657fd88d.html