Louisiana Woman Sentenced to 33 Months for Wire Fraud and Employment Tax Violations

FORT POLK, La. — Juanita Faye Holtschneider, 58, received a 33-month prison sentence on May 13, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri for wire fraud and willful failure to pay federal employment taxes, the Justice Department said.

The sentence includes three years of post-release supervision and requires Holtschneider to pay $322,098.70 in restitution. The case centered on her conviction for diverting employment taxes withheld from employee paychecks and for executing a scheme that used wire communications to defraud victims of that amount.

The restitution order covers both the employment tax liabilities and the losses tied to the wire fraud counts. Federal employment taxes encompass Social Security and Medicare contributions that employers must remit on behalf of workers; the failure to pay deprived the Treasury of those funds while employees still received credit for withheld amounts on their individual returns.

The sentence shifts Holtschneider from pretrial status to immediate incarceration at a Bureau of Prisons facility to be designated. Upon release she enters supervised release with standard conditions that include restrictions on new credit, employment in positions of financial trust, and mandatory reporting of financial information.

The restitution becomes due immediately under federal rules, with the Justice Department’s Financial Litigation Unit authorized to pursue collection through wage garnishment, asset seizure, and tax refund intercepts.

Downstream, the Treasury Department will record the $322,098.70 as recovered debt once payments are received, directly reducing the outstanding balance in the relevant trust funds. The case also requires the IRS to update its records on the affected employment-tax quarters so that any related liens or levies can be released or adjusted.

Federal probation officers must now schedule intake and monitoring, while the Bureau of Prisons must assign custody within its standard classification timeline.

This sentencing concludes a prosecution brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri. The original charges combined wire-fraud counts under 18 U.S.C. § 1343 with willful failure to pay taxes under 26 U.S.C. § 7202, statutes the department has used in other cases involving employer withholding violations.

The restitution figure matches the precise loss and tax amount established in the conviction.