Alabama Chiropractor Sentenced to More than Six Years in Prison for Tax Evasion

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – An Alabama chiropractor has been sentenced on charges of tax evasion and interfering with the administration of the internal revenue laws, announced U.S. Attorney Prim F. Escalona

U.S. District Court Judge Anna M. Manasco sentenced Gary Forrest Edwards, 65, of Maylene, Alabama, to 78 months in prison.  Edwards pleaded guilty during his trial in Birmingham after the United States presented two witnesses and several exhibits.

According to court documents and evidence admitted during trial, from 2015 to 2023, Edwards attempted to evade payment of more than $2.5 million in income taxes and obstructed the IRS’s efforts to collect those taxes.

Edwards owned and operated the chiropractic practice Hoover Health & Wellness Center. In 2015, he agreed to and did file delinquent income tax returns with the IRS for tax years 2009 through 2013. He later filed an income tax return for 2017. Despite filing the returns and reporting millions of dollars in taxable income, Edwards never paid the more than $2.5 million in taxes he admitted he owed—or the near $1.9 million in penalties and interested assessed by the IRS.

Court documents also reflected Edwards’s admission to several of the ways by which he evaded payment of his taxes and obstructed collection of them: concealing financial accounts he owned from the IRS, transferring funds from accounts he owned to accounts in only his spouse’s name, filing false court documents to terminate federal tax liens against his property, lying to IRS criminal investigators, and more.

IRS-Criminal Investigation investigated the case. Tax Division Trial Attorney Isaiah Boyd and Assistant United States Attorney Allison Garnett prosecuted the case.