A former facilities manager for Primary Health Network (PHN), a non-profit medical organization headquartered in Sharon, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced in federal court to 30 months in prison, to be followed by one year of supervised release, for conspiring to commit wire fraud and money laundering and for filing a false tax return. United States District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan imposed the sentence on Mark Marriott, 59, of Sharpsville, Pennsylvania. Two of Marriott’s co-conspirators, PHN’s former CEOs Drew Pierce and Jack Laeng, were both sentenced in April 2026, with Pierce sentenced to 40 months of imprisonment and Laeng to 24 months of imprisonment (read the news release on those sentencings here).
According to information presented to the Court, Marriott engaged in three schemes to defraud PHN. First, Marriott conspired with Pierce, Laeng, and others in a scheme in which they inserted a company called TopCoat between PHN and the company’s legitimate vendors. PHN paid TopCoat, which provided no services other than to pay the true vendors a lesser price. PHN’s board of directors was unaware that TopCoat performed no actual work and was made up entirely of PHN insiders. The TopCoat scheme caused a loss to PHN of more than $500,000. Second, Marriott engaged in a scheme in which he directed a PHN vendor to provide inflated invoices to PHN in order to fund kickback payments made to Marriott, Pierce, and a company Marriott owned with Pierce. Third, Marriott and Pierce used PHN funds to pay for their own personal expenses. Additionally, Marriott failed to report some of the proceeds of the schemes on his federal income tax returns.