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October 27, 2023

IRS Contractor Pleads Guilty to Disclosing Tax Return Information to News Organizations

On October 12, 2023, in the District of Columbia, Charles Edward Littlejohn, an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) contractor, pleaded guilty to disclosing tax return information without authorization. 

Littlejohn, while working on an IRS contract, accessed and stole tax returns and return information for a high-ranking government official and related entities and individuals.  In order to avoid detection by the IRS, rather than directly search an IRS database for the high-ranking government official’s tax return information, Littlejohn queried the database using generalized parameters that would nevertheless collect the high-ranking government official’s tax return information in the resulting data set.  He uploaded this data to a personal, private website to avoid IRS protocols designed to detect and prevent large downloads or uploads from IRS systems.  Littlejohn then stored the data in multiple locations, including on personal storage devices, such as his Apple iPod.

Between August 2019 and October 2019, Littlejohn disclosed to a news organization the tax return information associated with the high-ranking government official.  In the Spring of 2020, Littlejohn stole additional tax return information associated with the high-ranking government official and provided it to the news organization.  In September 2020, the news organization published the first of several articles that publicly disclosed information contained in the high-ranking government official’s tax returns.

In July and August 2020, Littlejohn separately stole tax returns and return information associated with thousands of the nation’s wealthiest individuals.  Littlejohn concealed his activities by using a method similar to the one he employed in removing tax return information associated with the high-ranking government official.  In November 2020, Littlejohn disclosed this tax return information to a second news organization, which has since published nearly 50 articles using the information provided by Littlejohn.  Littlejohn then obstructed the forthcoming investigation into his conduct by deleting and destroying evidence of his offenses.

Source:  The facts in this case narrative come from the following publicly available documents: D.D.C. Plea Agr., filed Oct. 12, 2023; D.D.C. Info., filed Sept. 29, 2023; and D.D.C. Stat. of Fact filed Oct. 12, 2023.