A Jacksonville, Oregon businessman who built a network of logging and construction companies was sentenced Friday to 42 months in federal prison after admitting he stole employment taxes from his own workers and funneled pandemic relief money into a professional ultimate frisbee operation, including renting a Portland stadium for a tournament. U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane also ordered Joel Matthew Caswell to pay $1,198,799.83 in restitution to the IRS and serve five years of supervised release once he's out.
The sentencing, originally scheduled for October, was moved up and handed down on August 21, according to the Rogue Valley Times. Caswell, who registered his first Southern Oregon company at just 19 years old in 2013, ran a portfolio of businesses including Siskiyou Cascade Resources, Siskiyou Cascade Construction, Siskiyou Cascade Industries and South Bay Logging, according to IJPR. Those businesses employed roughly 40 workers as of 2018, per KOIN.
A Fraud Scheme That Ran for Years
Caswell pleaded guilty in June to eight felony counts: three counts of tax evasion, three counts of willful failure to pay employment taxes, one count of wire fraud, one count of bank fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft, per KOIN. Prosecutors said his tax scheme ran from 2018 through 2022, during which he withheld employment taxes from his workers' paychecks but never turned the money over to the IRS, instead directing customers to write checks to another company or to him personally, moving business funds and lying to IRS collection officers along the way.
The scheme traces back to 2019, when the IRS assessed a Trust Fund Recovery Penalty against the Caswell Family Trust after he failed to hand over withheld employment taxes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. That penalty is what pushed Caswell to start concealing business checks and misleading collectors, the agency said. Investigators also found he used another person's identification to obtain a residential mortgage, the basis for his aggravated identity theft charge.
Pandemic Loans Bankrolled a Frisbee League
Beyond the payroll tax fraud, prosecutors said Caswell misused $70,000 in Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan proceeds meant to keep his businesses afloat during the pandemic. Instead, the money went toward renting Providence Park in Portland for ultimate frisbee games and an eight-day tournament, the same IJPR report found. Caswell had been the owner of the Portland Nitro, a professional Ultimate Frisbee Association team, and served as CEO of Pearl Sports Group, which also ran the Oregon Onyx franchise, according to the Portland Tribune.
Pearl Sports Group operated the Nitro before Caswell sold the franchise in 2024, per the Portland Tribune's earlier reporting. Even before his federal indictment, local circuit court records showed he had accumulated dozens of civil lawsuits and more than $630,000 in recorded unpaid judgments owed to contractors and financial institutions, including over $250,000 owed to Rogue Credit Union, according to the Forest Grove News-Times.
Charges Dropped From 23 Counts to Eight
Caswell was originally indicted by a federal grand jury in April 2025 on 23 felony counts that carried up to 30 years in prison, before agreeing in June to plead guilty to the reduced set of eight counts, the Rogue Valley Times reported. The investigation into his businesses was conducted jointly by IRS Criminal Investigation, the FBI, and the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management, which became involved because of Caswell's timber and logging operations, according to the Justice Department.
Drive-By Shooting Charges Still Pending in Medford
Caswell's legal troubles didn't stop at fraud. While free on federal pretrial release in August 2025, he was arrested in Medford, Oregon, in connection with two drive-by shootings and charged in state court with unlawful use of a weapon, reckless endangerment, and criminal mischief, according to KGW. Police alleged he fired into a residence without intent to injure the occupants, per that report.
That arrest prompted federal authorities to revoke Caswell's pretrial release, and he has remained jailed on a federal hold ever since, through his federal plea and now his sentencing, per the same IJPR account. He received credit for time served on the state proceedings while held federally, though it remains unclear how his 42-month federal sentence will ultimately run relative to any future disposition of the pending Medford shooting charges. It's also unclear how much of the $1.2 million IRS restitution will actually be recovered given Caswell's history of civil judgments exceeding $630,000.
