MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A former IRS employee who said boredom led him to peek at the tax records of President Clinton, Elvis Presley and other famous people was acquitted yesterday of federal charges.

Robert Patterson, 38, said it wasn't malicious - he was just trying to learn how to better use the Internal Revenue Service computers.

''I was sitting there bored, so I started punching up names,'' said Patterson, who had been charged with unlawful disclosure of information from tax returns. He resigned in February after being indicted.

Patterson's lawyer claimed tax returns of celebrities are routinely passed around the IRS office in Memphis, which is a regional hub for tax returns, and that Patterson was being made a scapegoat.

The IRS set up new guidelines two years ago for employees found snooping in computerized records, with punishment ranging from reprimands to firing. The guidelines were instituted after an IRS audit in the Southeast found 368 incidents of potential securi ty violations. Ultimately, 165 employees were disciplined.

Among the celebrity records Patterson was accused of accessing are those of singer Wynonna Judd, actress Cybill Shepherd and Elizabeth Taylor. He also was charged with looking into files of a local TV weatherman, the former owner of a string of topless ni ghtclubs in Memphis and a perennial candidate for local office who calls himself Prince Mongo.