Former trucking CEO who stranded hundreds of drivers released from prison early due to COVID-19

The former executive for the company that famously stranded hundreds of truck drivers by shutting down unexpectedly just days before Christmas will be released from federal prison to home confinement.

Fifty-one year old James Douglas “Doug” Pielsticker, former CEO of Tulsa-based Arrow Trucking, was released from federal prison to home confinement amid the Coronavirus pandemic, the Tulsa World reports.

As of May 6, 467 cases of Coronavirus have been reported at the federal prison in Fort Worth where Pielsticker was housed.

Pielsticker will remain under home confinement until May 2021 after serving four years of a seven and a half year sentence. He must still pay $22 million in restitution.

Pielsticker’s legal team has asked for a reduction in his prison sentence multiple times. In early April 2020, he requested an outright ‘compassionate release’ from prison due to the Coronavirus outbreak but was denied.

Pielsticker pled guilty in 2015 to charges of tax fraud and tax evasion after embezzling millions of dollars from Arrow Trucking over the course of several years and using the money to pay for lavish personal expenses including his 1000 guest wedding and a Porsche, a Bentley, and a Maserati.

Because of Pielsticker’s mismanagement, Arrow Trucking went out of business without warning a few days before Christmas in 2009, leaving about 900 of its 1400 drivers stranded on the road without pay or working fuel cards in order to get home.

Many of the unemployed and stranded drivers only made it home for Christmas thanks to the kindness of other truck drivers.