A former Missouri House speaker was sentenced to 21 months in prison after admitting to misusing federal COVID-19 relief loans for personal expenses, prosecutors said on Monday, March 9.
U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Pitlyk also fined John J. Diehl Jr. $50,000, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri. Diehl, 60, pleaded guilty in September 2025 to wire fraud after he confessed to defrauding the U.S. Small Business Administration out of hundreds of thousands of dollars through fraudulently obtained COVID-19 pandemic loans, prosecutors said.
Diehl formerly served as an alderman for Town and County, an affluent suburb west of downtown St. Louis, and was the chairman of the St. Louis County Board of Election Commissioners, according to prosecutors. He resigned as Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives in 2015 afterThe Kansas City Starreported that he had exchanged sexually suggestive text messages with a college intern.
In a plea agreement last September, prosecutors said Diehl admitted that he obtained a total of $379,900 in federal loans for his law firm from 2020 to 2022. In applications for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan, a program created to help struggling small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic, prosecutors said Diehl promised that his law firm would use the funds to "alleviate economic injury caused by disaster."
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Instead, prosecutors said Diehl used the funds for his personal benefit, such as paying off vehicle payments, bills, and a civil settlement related to his time as state House speaker. His lawyer previously confirmed that Diehl has since repaid the money to the U.S. Treasury.
"This defendant's law practice didn't suffer at all during the COVID-19 pandemic," Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith said during court, according to anews releasefrom the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Goldsmith said Diehl did not use any of the loans for his law firm, adding that Diehl "saw a way to make some easy and cheap money."
FBI: John Diehl 'diverted those funds for personal use'
According to prosecutors, Diehl applied for the federal loan in March 2020 and received $94,900. About two years later, he requested a loan modification and obtained $285,000 from the second loan.
In those applications, prosecutors said Diehl signed an agreement form in which he falsely certified that his law firm "will use all the proceeds of this Loan solely as working capital to alleviate economic injury caused by disaster occurring in the month of January 31, 2020, and continuing thereafter."
"Although he legitimately obtained pandemic relief loans for his law practice, Diehl diverted those funds for personal use rather than the purposes Congress intended," Chris Crocker, special agent in charge of the FBI's St. Louis Division, said in a statement. "Relief programs like these were created to help small businesses survive the COVID-19 pandemic — not to line someone's pockets."
After federal loan proceeds were wired into his law firm's bank account, prosecutors said Diehl would transfer some of the funds to his personal bank accounts. In April 2020, Diehl made a $1,320.15 payment to a country club for personal dues and charges after receiving a $1,000 advance from the loan, according to prosecutors.
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Diehl then received the remainder of the first loan — about $93,900 — in June 2020, and "impermissibly used" the funds for unauthorized personal use, prosecutors said. He made payments on his Tesla, Audi, and Jeep vehicles; personal credit cards; a home mortgage; a family member's college tuition; pool maintenance; additional country club dues and fees; and cash withdrawals.
Diehl also transferred $50,039.55 from the loan to his law firm's retirement plan, in which Diehl was the only participant, in September 2020, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said Diehl received funds from the second loan in April 2022 and continued to spend the money on personal payments, including fees paid to a St. Louis law firm for a personal legal matter and another transfer of $150,000 to his retirement plan.
Diehl was later fined $47,392 after he entered into a consent order with the Missouri Ethics Commission in 2023. Prosecutors said Diehl was accused of misusing $6,762.70 of campaign committee funds to pay for personal expenses and "failing to report additional expenditures of campaign committee funds, including at least $28,700 of personal expenses."
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According to court documents, Diehl used some loan funds to pay off "a civil settlement related to his time as Speaker of the House."
Diehl, who was first elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 2008, announced in 2015 that he was resigning as House speaker afterThe Kansas City Starrevealed he had exchanged sexually suggestive text messages with a college freshman who was part of a state Capitol internship program.
At the time, Diehl acknowledged in a written statement that he had made a "serious error in judgment."
"I take full responsibility for my actions and am truly sorry to those I let down. I apologize for the poor judgment I displayed that put me and those closest to me in this situation," Diehl said in the statement. "I also regret that the woman has been dragged into this situation. The buck stops here. I ask for forgiveness. I will begin immediately working to restore the trust of those closest to me, and getting back to the important work that is required in the final days of session."
Following the news of the text messages, the local newspaper reported that the Missouri Southern State University decided to end its Capitol internship program a month early.
Richard Miller, who was the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Missouri Southern at the time, told The Star that the university pulled its four interns out of the state Capitol after an unspecified incident.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Former Missouri House speaker sentenced for COVID-19 pandemic fraud