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LOS ANGELES – A 38-year-old Los Angeles woman was sentenced this week for her part in an over $470,000 scheme involving filing tax returns for deceased individuals and for stealing federal checks from the U.S. mail system. Janel McDonald was sentenced to 65 months in prison, after being convicted in March of conspiring to commit theft of public money, and aggravated identity theft. McDonald was charged with ten others for in November 2015.

According to evidence presented during the trial, the group stole deceased individuals’ personal identifying information from California death records and used it To file federal tax returns seeking refunds. They also obtained Social Security and tax refund checks there were stolen from the mail. justice department official said the McDonald also gave fake California IDs to her co-conspirators who use them to cash the stolen checks.

In addition to the prison term, McDonald will also serve three years on supervised release and is expected to return $471,961 in restitution to the IRS.