Nolan Otto DeWall, Bank Fraud, Iowa 2023

A Cedar Falls man was sentenced to federal prison for a sophisticated check kiting scheme that left a trucking company defunct and its owners reeling. Nolan Otto DeWall, 39, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison for bank fraud in a scheme that netted the grain cooperative he managed hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In May 2018, DeWall devised a plan to transfer large sums of money between accounts of the grain cooperative and the trucking company he co-owned, as well as other accounts. The checks, with no legitimate business purpose, were designed to temporarily inflate the balances of the accounts to benefit the grain cooperative, which was in financial distress.

DeWall also forged the signature of one of his partners on a check. When the scheme collapsed, the trucking company’s account was left with a negative $247,000 balance. The company was forced to sell all its assets and go defunct, while one of DeWall’s partners filed for personal bankruptcy and another partner was forced to repay the debt with personal funds and a loan.

‘DeWall’s scheme was a brazen attempt to line his own pockets at the expense of his business partners,’ prosecutors said. ‘His greed ultimately led to the downfall of the trucking company and the financial ruin of those around him.’

DeWall was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge Leonard T. Strand. He was ordered to make $217,441.96 in restitution to his partners in the trucking business and serve a two-year term of supervised release after his prison term.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Timothy L. Vavricek and investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. DeWall is currently free on bond and is expected to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on a date yet to be set.

The case file number is 22-CR-213. For more information, visit https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.

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