The agreement, which was filed this week in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City and is awaiting a judge's approval, will settle a lawsuit brought last year by the government seeking payment for the move from Jeffrey James Clark and Tania Clark.

The two agreed to repay the money at a rate of $1,000 a month.

In 2001, Tania Clark, now 34, wrote an emotional letter to her husband's supervisors at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency describing her struggle with cancer.

Based on her plea to be closer to loved ones and a letter purportedly from a Texas doctor, the DEA paid $47,806 to move the Clarks from Houston to West Jordan.

Once in Utah, Tania Clark collected thousands of dollars from donations and fundraisers by pretending to need a bone marrow transplant. Some of the donors were her children's classmates.

Her story fell apart when an article in the weekly South Valley Journal prompted her sister to send an e-mail saying Clark could not be trusted.

An investigation showed that Clark had never been a patient at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston or the Huntsman Cancer Institute, where she had claimed to be receiving treatment. And no person with the name of the doctor who supposedly treated her in Texas had ever practiced medicine at Anderson.

Tania Clark was sentenced by 3rd District Judge Paul Maughan in 2005 to 30 days in jail. The judge ordered prison sentences of one to 15 years for theft by deception and up to five years for attempted theft by deception, but suspended them.

Instead, he placed Clark on three years' probation and ordered her to perform 200 hours of community service, serve the jail time and pay $5,378 in restitution.

Clark also was sentenced by 4th District Judge Samuel McVey in Utah County to probation and community service after she pleaded guilty to felony theft stemming from the same scheme. McVey also ordered her to pay $5,800 in restitution.

The DEA on Friday did not respond to Tribune inquiries about Jeffrey Clark's job status.

pmanson@sltrib.com