An Alabama chiropractor has been sentenced to more than six years in prison for tax evasion and interfering with the administration of internal revenue laws, according to an announcement from U.S. Attorney Prim F. Escalona.
Gary Forrest Edwards, 65, of Maylene, Alabama, received a 78-month prison sentence from U.S. District Court Judge Anna M. Manasco. Edwards pleaded guilty during his trial in Birmingham after the United States presented two witnesses and several exhibits.
Court documents and evidence showed that between 2015 and 2023, Edwards tried to avoid paying over $2.5 million in income taxes and obstructed the IRS’s efforts to collect those taxes.
Edwards owned Hoover Health & Wellness Center. In 2015, he agreed to file delinquent income tax returns for the years 2009 through 2013 with the IRS and later filed a return for 2017. Although he reported millions of dollars in taxable income on these returns, he did not pay more than $2.5 million in taxes or nearly $1.9 million in penalties and interest assessed by the IRS.
According to court records, Edwards admitted to several actions intended to evade payment and hinder collection efforts: hiding financial accounts from the IRS, transferring funds into accounts held only by his spouse, filing false court documents aimed at ending federal tax liens on his property, lying to IRS criminal investigators, among other methods.
The case was investigated by IRS-Criminal Investigation. Tax Division Trial Attorney Isaiah Boyd and Assistant United States Attorney Allison Garnett prosecuted the case.
