Iowa man sentenced to prison for using trucking company credit card to buy $140K in Pokemon cards, gaming items, gift cards

An Iowa man was recently sentenced to federal prison for misusing his trucking company employer’s credit card for personal purchases.

On August 15, 2025, Mitch William Gross, 34, was sentenced to four months in federal prison on a wire fraud charge, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.

The prison term will be followed by three years of supervised release.

Officials say that between September 2021 to October 2022, Gross defrauded his trucking company employer by using the company credit card to make unauthorized personal purchases, including “prepaid gift cards, Pokemon cards, and gaming items.”

To conceal the fraudulent purchases, Gross reportedly falsified receipts and mischaracterized fraudulent charges on his expense reports so that the purchases appeared as legitimate business expenses.

The fraudulent purchases totaled more than $140,000, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Des Moines Police Department.