Patent analyst gets 18 months for stealing $534,000

Alexandria (WBQB/WFVA)  -- A former financial analyst for the Patent and Trademark Office has been sentenced to a year and a half in prison for stealing more than $500,000 from a government account.  A former boyfriend who helped her received an identical sentence.  Thirty-nine-year old Karen Parish of Woodbridge pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria to embezzling roughly $534,000 over a seven-year period. She paid the money to accounts controlled by 50-year-old Michael Reid of Fort Washington, Md. The two would split the money.  Prosecutors had sought a sentence of two years and three months.  Parish was also ordered to make restitution, but in court records she said the money has all been spent.