Ex-GOP Speaker gets prison for blowing COVID money on luxury cars and country club

Former Missouri House Speaker John Diehl was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison Monday after pleading guilty last year to misusing federal loans meant to help businesses withstand the COVID-19 pandemic.

Diehl, a St. Louis-area attorney, admitted defrauding the U.S. Small Business Administration out of $379,900 through an Economic Injury Disaster Loan and a later loan modification obtained through false representations.

His attorneys asked the court last month for a non-custodial sentence, arguing in part that he repaid the money. Prosecutors pushed back on that argument, saying repayment should not be treated as an “extraordinary” basis for leniency because Diehl is a “man of great and substantial means.”

Prosecutors say he used the funds for personal expenses, including payments on a Tesla, Audi and Jeep, mortgage payments, pool maintenance, additional country club charges and cash withdrawals. The filing also says he used about $200,000 of the loan money to fund a defined benefit plan for his law firm in which he was the sole participant.

Diehl also allegedly used some of the funds to pay off “a civil settlement related to his time as Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives.” Prosecutors did not specify the nature of that settlement or whether it is connected to the scandal that forced him from office in 2015, which involved sending sexually inappropriate text messages to a 19-year-old House intern.

Diehl will be allowed to report to prison at a later date.

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