A Broward County woman was sentenced Thursday to nearly six years in prison for stealing the identities of U.S. Marines and others in a tax-refund scam designed to trick the Internal Revenue Service into sending her thousands of dollars.

Dorothy Boulin, 29, of Coral Springs, plotted with a Marine from North Miami who allegedly supplied her with the stolen IDs of fellow Marines while he was stationed in Afghanistan, according to charges filed in federal court.

Boulin, sentenced by U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore in Miami, pleaded guilty in April to ID theft and wire fraud. Her case stood out from numerous other South Florida tax-fraud cases prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office because of the Marine-Afghanistan connection.

In a letter to the judge, the defendant’s parents, Jean and Marielle Boulin, described their daughter as a “hard-working, independent and caring mother” and asked Moore for “some leniency” to give her a “second chance in making better choices.”

According to the charges, Boulin used an electronic IRS number — typically issued to legitimate tax preparers — on her home computer to file false returns in the names of at least 14 people, including several Marines serving in the U.S. war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The bogus returns, processed in January with an online tax-filing company called OLT PRO, sought about $54,000 in refunds.

The FBI, using an informant, cracked the case with assistance from the IRS.

Boulin, who cooperated with authorities as part of her plea agreement, led the FBI to her Marine contact, Jobson Cenor, who allegedly supplied her with the stolen personal data of fellow service members.

At the FBI’s direction, in February she spoke to Cenor by phone in Creole, discussing how she had started filing some of the tax returns using the identities provided by Cenor, according to the charges.

Boulin told Cenor that some of the names were rejected by the IRS. Of those accepted, she said, Cenor “was going to get half of the tax refund money,’’ according to a criminal complaint. “Cenor said [Boulin] could hold the money until Cenor returned from Afghanistan.”

Cenor, a 2007 graduate of North Miami Senior High School, was arrested in May at Camp LeJeune in North Carolina by agents for the FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Cenor, 22, accused of selling the names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers of fellow Marines in the conspiracy to defraud the IRS, faces trial in late August in Miami federal court. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Monday.

Based at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan, Cenor used his Apple iPad to send text messages and emails to Boulin with the names of other Marines in December and January, according to the criminal complaint. He called himself “CJ Da Boss” in most of the correspondence.

When NCIS agents did a search of Cenor’s quarters at Camp Leatherneck, they seized a list containing the names and Social Security numbers of 44 Marines, according to the criminal complaint. Of those, 21 were on lists found by FBI agents in Boulin’s residence when they arrested her in February.