Federal government employees almost never go to prison. Really, no matter how bad your conduct is, unless it's like a Trump-style political prosecution, they don't indict their own. I don't even think people are routinely fired. It's really hard to have any consequences for not doing or doing wrong in your Fed government job.

I had a friend who was just sandbagging stringing the government along. I won't say where he worked, but he worked from home as basically an engineer. Worked is an exaggeration because he did very little. By his own admission. But it's hard to blame him. As long as they were paying him ok, why would he leave? He can do whatever he wants with the rest of his time, and the government won't know. They either completely shutdown for COVID or very nearly did. I'm not sure they ever really restarted.

I always figured the downside of that was being on the federal pay scale. While the benefits are good, the President used to make 200k and only makes 400k today which really limits what you can make (since functionaries have to be below high ranking officials and military officers in the pay scale). And DC ain't cheap. That's why it was cool that my friend works from home in free America.