The former CEO of a now-defunct trucking company that left its employees stranded all over the country when it suddenly shut down in December 2009 has pleaded guilty in federal court in Oklahoma to charges of tax evasion and fraud.
James Douglas Pielsticker, former chief executive officer and president of Arrow Trucking Co., pleaded guilty before United States District Court Chief Judge Gregory K. Frizzell to conspiring to commit bank fraud, tax fraud and evading his personal income taxes.
Arrow suspended operations and laid off hundreds of employees on Dec. 22, 2009, leaving truck drivers stranded across the country. Arrow was subsequently sued by employees who alleged the company failed to pay them, reimburse their expenses or pay their medical insurance premiums to carriers in the weeks before the shutdown.
Arrow filed for bankruptcy in January 2010, hours after a Utah bank filed a lawsuit against the company.
Pielsticker, formerly of Tulsa, Okla., and now living in Dallas, was indicted by a grand jury on Dec. 1, 2014, for conspiring to defraud the United States by, among other things, failing to account for and pay over more than $9 million in payroll taxes, including federal income tax, Medicare and social security taxes, for Arrow employees.
Jonathan Leland Moore, the former chief financial officer of Arrow Trucking, and others were also indicted, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma.
Federal officials said Pielsticker’s co-conspirators provided Transportation Alliance Bank (TAB), a financial institution in Ogden, Utah, with fraudulent and misleading invoice data that inflated amounts due to Arrow Trucking. The indictment alleged that Alliance Bank was defrauded of about $15 million.
As part of the plea agreement, Pielsticker admitted that he evaded his individual income taxes due and owing to the United States for 2009 by causing Arrow Trucking to spend thousands of dollars on his various personal expenses, including payments related to his wedding and on Bentley and Maserati automobiles.
Pielsticker faces a statutory maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. In addition, Pielsticker faces money judgments in an amount representing proceeds obtained as a result of his participation in a conspiracy to defraud the United States and to commit bank fraud.
The case was investigated by the FBI and IRS-CI; Department of Justice Tax Division Trial Attorney Charles A. O’Reilly and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jeffrey A. Gallant and Catherine Depew are prosecuting the case.
United States Attorney Danny C. Williams Sr. of the Northern District of Oklahoma, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciralo for the Justice Department’s Tax Division, Special Agent in Charge James E. Finch of the FBI’s Oklahoma City Division Office, and Special Agent in Charge Damon Rowe of the IRS-Criminal Investigation’s Dallas Division Office made the announcement.
The case is U.S. v. James Douglas Pielsticker.
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