DALLAS — A Dallas business owner who withheld millions of dollars in payroll taxes from her employees and failed to turn that money over to the federal government has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison, federal prosecutors said.
A judge sentenced Heaven Marie Diaz, 57, to 97 months in federal prison and ordered her to pay $799,033.47 in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas. A jury found Diaz guilty in June of five counts of failing to pay over trust fund taxes after being indicted in 2023, records show.
Court records show Diaz was the owner and chief executive officer of Pursuit of Excellence, a Dallas-based staffing company. From 2015 to 2017, prosecutors said, she withheld payroll taxes from employee paychecks but failed to remit more than $3 million to the Internal Revenue Service as required by law…