NASHVILLE (CN) — A Tennessee man was sentenced to four years in prison for trying to extort an accounting firm by falsely claiming that he stole former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's tax returns.
Michael Mancil Brown, 37, was convicted in May of six counts of wire fraud and six counts of using facilities of interstate commerce to commit extortion.
Prosecutors said Brown tried to defraud Romney, PricewaterhouseCoopers and others by falsely claiming in 2012 that he had stolen tax documents for Romney and his wife Ann, for tax years prior to 2010.
Brown sent letters to the PricewaterhouseCoopers office in Franklin, Tenn., asking for $1 million in Bitcoin digital currency to prevent the release of the documents, according to evidence presented at trial.
He was accused of sending similar letters to others who might want the documents released, again asking for $1 million in Bitcoin.
Brown was sentenced late Monday to 48 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson, who also ordered Brown to pay over $201,000 in restitution to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
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