While what she did was wrong and she should go to prison, I think that this sentence is ridiculous. There are murderers and rapists that get out of jail, why should someone who stole face a stiffer penalty? (Just my opinion)
When you have a situation like that you up the penalty mostly to keep honest people honest.
Based on experience (catching such folks by the thousands it turned out) I am thinking of writing a 'how to do it' book ~ it will describe how to create a fake employee and reap the rewards of modest tax refunds, even EITC!
I will not advise anyone to do this ~ but I fully expect to have some IRS guys want to interview me ~ and I, of course, will want to interview them using Hanns-Joachim Gottlob Scharff's proven technique. Even Colonel Kanatzhan (Kanat) Alibekov told me that I was very, very good ~ among the best he'd ever encountered.
This was not her sentence, it was what a reporter says she "faces." The reporter probably got that number by taking every crime she is charged with and adding up the maximum sentence for each. Federal sentencing guidelines don't actually work that way. Realistically, she will probably get 20-25 years.
She did not just steal once. This was a long, calculating process. She stole from all of us. At least SOME “violent criminals” had a moment of loss of control, which in the end caused harm, and landed them in prison, but they were not dong their crime over and over for months or years on end. I think it is fair that she received such a long sentence.