Friday marked on paper the end of Vicksburg attorney Marshall Sanders’ federal prison sentence for not paying federal income taxes for four years.

Sanders, 59, was physically released from a low-security federal prison in Yazoo City in August and “has been home a while now and it has ended for him,” his wife, Deborah Sanders, said in an e-mail.

Sanders was sentenced to 18 months on two misdemeanor counts following a March 2009 plea agreement that allowed him to avoid a possible 15-year sentence on three felony counts for not paying taxes from 2000 to 2003. Also, he was ordered to pay $1,025,453 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.

Since August, Sanders has been listed by the federal Bureau of Prisons in a pre-release, community corrections program run by the bureau’s regional office in Montgomery, Ala. Staff assists those nearing the end of their sentence with various services such as employment, housing and mental health treatment. Sanders’ wife didn’t specify whether Sanders, still listed as an active attorney by the Mississippi Bar, had been placed in any employment as a result of the program.

“The goal is to have them become a productive member of society,” said Alvin Speights, community corrections manager at the bureau’s Residential Re-entry Center in Montgomery.

The state bar association has recommended Sanders’ law license be suspended for three years, based on rules of professional conduct it says Sanders violated. A three-person panel appointed by the state Supreme Court has considered a case since August 2009.