Inside job on tax fraud brings 4-year sentence

A former employee of the taxation centre in St. John's was given a four-year prison sentence Thursday in a scam that put more than $600,000 in his pocket.

Kurt Fagan, 53, had pleaded guilty this spring to fraud and failing to paying taxes, following an investigation that uncovered how he manipulated dozens of taxpayers' files to benefit himself.

In provincial court in St. John's, Judge David Orr ordered Fagan to pay back slightly more than $278,000.

Fagan, who lives in neighbouring Mount Pearl, had worked at the St. John's taxation centre for more than 20 years.

The Crown had asked for a five-year prison sentence, while the defence had recommended two years.

An internal probe had found that Fagan stole $652,369.98.

An agreed statement of facts presented to the court said that Fagan used the money to feed a gambling addiction that involved video lottery terminals.

Court had been told that Fagan engineered the scam by accessing the accounts of 101 individuals. He manipulated the information in 87 of those accounts and arranged for phoney refunds to be sent to himself.

Court was told that Fagan admitted the fraud when confronted, and that he was fired when the fraud was discovered in 2008.