April 20, 2015
Former Lehigh County Prison medical director Dennis Erik Fluck Von Kiel was sentenced to 41 months in prison on Monday for tax fraud and lying on student aid applications for his four eldest children, among other convictions.
Von Kiel plead guilty to 16 counts in January that included attempting to defeat or evade a federal tax, wire fraud, perjury in a bankruptcy proceeding, and financial aid fraud.
The charges and subsequent sentencing stem from a number of illegal schemes Von Kiel participated in starting in 2001, authorities said. Many of those schemes can be traced back to him pretending to be a minister, which he attempted to use to avoid paying taxes due to his claim that he had taken a "vow of poverty."
Von Kiel claimed he was exempt from federal tax withholdings because of his involvement with a church, and would have his employer deposit bi-weekly checks in to his supposed church's bank account. Then, co-conspirators would transfer amounts almost identical to the deposits from that account in to separate accounts controlled by Von Kiel. The money was used to pay for his family's personal expenses.
He was also able to secure more than $36,000 in federal grants for the college educations of four of his children by lying on Department of Education student financial aid applications, and lied about having post-traumatic stress disorder to attain Social Security disability benefits.
Von Kiel's medical practice served inmates at Lehigh County Prison from 1989 until 2013. In addition to the prison sentence, he has been ordered to pay restitution to the IRS, Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services.
