Counseling-center owner sentenced for retaining withheld payroll taxes
Oct 18, 2026 edition · GC-2026-0360 · Published 2026-10-18 · Version 1 · Final
Mari Alexander received three years' probation and a $1,048,840 restitution order after failing to remit payroll taxes from a Tennessee mental-health counseling business. The new event is the October 13 sentence. The conduct concerns employment-tax administration rather than clinical billing.
What happened
Mari Alexander was sentenced October 13 to three years' probation and ordered to pay $1,048,840 in restitution to the United States. She had pleaded guilty April 15, 2026 to willful failure to account for and pay over employment taxes. The article was published October 13 and updated October 15; the update does not move the sentencing event to October 15. The restitution order is distinct from a healthcare-program repayment or patient-care sanction.
Alexander was sole owner and president of a mental-health counseling center with multiple Tennessee locations and controlled its financial affairs. From 2015 through 2020, she failed to remit withheld Social Security, Medicare and federal income taxes and failed to file more than 20 quarterly employment-tax returns. DOJ described a tax loss exceeding $1 million. The healthcare connection is the employer's counseling business, while the operative control issue is custody, remittance and independent confirmation of withheld employment taxes.
Scope and timing
- Authority status
- Final
- Applicability
- Operationally relevant
- Audience
- Health systems, Provider networks
- Jurisdiction
- Federal
Why it matters
Healthcare organizations can face significant enforcement exposure through ordinary finance functions. Payroll processing alone does not establish that withheld taxes were deposited or returns filed.
Recommended action
Require independent confirmation of payroll-tax deposits and quarterly filings, reconcile them to payroll liabilities, and escalate overdue remittances or missing returns to leadership.
Case details
- agencies
- DOJ, IRS-CI
- entities
- Mari Alexander
- action Type
- Criminal resolution
- event Date
- 2026-10-13
- alleged Conduct
- Willfully failing to remit withheld employment taxes or file more than 20 quarterly returns for a mental-health counseling business.
- resolution
- Three years' probation and $1,048,840 restitution following an April guilty plea.
Operational lessons
- Confirm actual tax deposits and filed returns independently.
- Escalate withholding liabilities that remain unpaid.
Implementation playbook
- Recommended internal target: reconcile current payroll-tax liabilities with deposit confirmations and filed quarterly returns. Finance · Due 2026-10-23
- Recommended internal target: establish independent review of deposits, filing confirmations and exception escalation outside the person controlling payroll disbursements. Executive Leadership · Due 2026-10-30
Sources
- Mental-health counseling business owner sentenced for employment-tax fraudOfficial · U.S. Department of Justice · 2026-10-13
Complete edition and supplemental material
This finding in the complete approved report →Regulatory horizons, CIA trends and implementation trackers remain in the full report.
Read the entire Enforcement Briefing report →