February 4, 2015

Former Arrow Trucking Executive Pleads Guilty in Multi-Million-Dollar Fraud

TULSA, OK—James Douglas Pielsticker, former Chief Executive Officer and President of Arrow Trucking Company, pleaded guilty today before United States District Court Chief Judge Gregory K. Frizzell to conspiring to commit bank fraud, tax fraud, and evading his personal income taxes.

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.

Pielsticker, 46, of Dallas, Texas, formerly of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was indicted by a grand jury on December 1, 2014. According to court documents, Arrow Trucking withheld payroll taxes from employees’ wages. Beginning in 2009, Pielsticker, Jonathan Leland Moore, the former Chief Financial Officer of Arrow Trucking Company, and others conspired 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 Trucking employees. As part of the conspiracy, 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. As a result of this false information, the TAB paid Arrow Trucking more money than Arrow Trucking was entitled to receive under the companies’ agreement.

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 ten 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.