D.C. Tax Office Servers End Up at Ruby Tuesday

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THE CLOUD OF SCANDAL THAT HANGS OVER the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue has gotten a little more hazy.

As The Post's Carol D. Leonnig and Dan Keating report this morning, a maintenance engineer at Tivoli Square in Columbia Heights discovered two tax office computer servers next to a trash compactor behind Ruby Tuesday early on Wednesday.

Now, the FBI is examining the servers, which haven't been used in five years, to see if they hold information that could help shed light on the corruption scandal that has roiled the Office of Tax and Revenue in recent months. Ten people, including two former tax office employees, have been arrested in a federal probe and stand accused of embezzling more than $20 million — and possibly more — in phony property tax refunds.

More worrisome, according to privacy advocates: The fact that computer servers that could contain the personal information of taxpayers sat unprotected in an alleyway.

» "Tax Office Computer Servers Found by Trash" [WaPo]

Photo of maintenance worker Melvin Barnes next to the Ruby Tuesday trash compactor by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post