HAMMOND - A federal jury convicted a Hammond mental health clinic owner of withholding taxes from employees' trust funds and failing to file tax returns and spending them on himself, according to the United States Department of Justice.

Benjamin Thomas, 52, owned, controlled and operated a mental health services clinic, Lighthouse Community Care, with multiple locations across Louisiana.

According to the Department of Justice, Thomas withheld "trust fund taxes" from his employee's paychecks and failed to pay those to the IRS in 2017 and 2018. He failed to pay over $970,000 in trust funds over that period.

Thomas, while the IRS communicated with him regarding his tax obligations, diverted more than $350,000 in company funds to a vacation home in the Dominican Republic, over $400,000 to another management company he owned and and over $500,000 to a family trust.

He also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a Lamborghini and a McLaren, amongst other personal items.

Thomas had been living in the Dominican Republic since 2023.