Pandemic Darlings The pandemic economy, in original documents
Home Profiles Richard Dean Schiele Jr.

Profiles · Defendants

ProfilePerson

Richard Dean Schiele Jr.

Defendant

ERC
Type
Person
Role
Defendant
Programs
ERC
Updated

The profile

An Independence, Missouri man who formed a company in April 2023 and that same month filed nine quarterly payroll returns claiming $1,392,716 in COVID credits for 2020 through 2022, when it had no employees. The IRS paid $478,890; the Treasury clawed back $348,764.91 from his bank account. He was sentenced in April 2025 to a year and a day.

Identity and role

Richard Dean Schiele Jr., 51, of Independence, Missouri, was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Missouri after an IRS Criminal Investigation inquiry.

The scheme and pandemic-relief role

The Employee Retention Credit (ERC) was available for qualified wages paid after March 12, 2020 and before January 1, 2022, the office noted. According to his guilty plea, on April 22, 2023 Schiele filed nine Employer's Quarterly Federal Tax Returns for Schiele Family Own Distribution, a company he had formed that same month. The returns claimed a total of $1,392,716 in pandemic-era credits, the ERC among them, against the company's supposed employment taxes. The company "did not have any employees in 2020 through 2022," Schiele admitted.

The IRS issued checks totaling $478,890. The Treasury Department then recovered $348,764.91 from his bank account, which left $130,125.09 unrecovered; that is the restitution the court ordered.

A company that did not exist until April 2023 claimed credits for 2020 through 2022, on returns all filed the same day.

  • Pleaded guilty: October 30, 2024, before Chief U.S. District Judge Beth Phillips, to one count of filing a false claim, after waiving indictment.
  • Sentenced: April 15, 2025, to a year and a day in prison and $130,125.09 in restitution to the IRS.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

The April 2025 sentence is the last public record of Schiele we found.

Sources

Back to top