Ex-Missouri lawmaker who admitted to COVID fraud sentenced to prison
USA TODAY
John J. Diehl Jr., 60, pleaded guilty in September 2025 to wire fraud after he admitted to defrauding the U.S. Small Business Administration.
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 after The Kansas City Star reported 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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