No arrest of Arrow ex-CEO: Bench warrants issued against him and his mother are recalled. [Tulsa World, Okla.]

Jan. 6--Two Arrow Trucking Co. executives avoided being arrested Tuesday, buying enough time for bench warrants issued against them to be recalled, records show.

Tulsa County sheriff's deputies spent much of the day searching for former Arrow CEO Doug Pielsticker and Arrow Chairwoman Carol Pielsticker, said Sgt. Shannon Clark, the sheriff's spokesman.

Deputies tried to serve the bench warrants at the Pielsticker homes and elsewhere, Clark said.

Deputies went to Doug Pielsticker's gated home in the 1500 block of East 27th Street and tried to serve the warrant, but Pielsticker wasn't home, Clark said. Carol Pielsticker, his mother, is listed as living in the 3400 block of South Atlanta Place, records show.

"We went through the normal procedures of attempting to serve the warrants," Clark said. "We went to their known locations, and we also contacted family and friends to find out where they might be served."

Clark said the bench warrants were recalled about 5 p.m. by the Cleveland County District Court in Norman.

Records show Cleveland County Special District Judge Michael Tupper issued the bench warrants for the Pielstickers on Dec. 29. The Pielstickers failed to appear at an assets hearing for a wrongful-death lawsuit against Arrow Trucking and

its company-owned insurer, Astraea Risk Retention Group Inc.

Arrow, the largest trucking company in Oklahoma, suspended operations and sent workers home Dec. 22, stranding truck drivers across the country. Since then, company officials have said little about the company's fate.

After the Tulsa World first reported on its Web site Monday that the warrants had been issued, Pielsticker's attorney said he spoke with officials in Cleveland County and that the warrants would not be served. He repeated that assertion Tuesday, even as deputies were trying to arrest his client.

"There has been an agreement reached that the warrants will be recalled, but technically the judge has to take the appropriate action to accomplish that," Joel Wohlgemuth, an attorney representing the Pielstickers, said via telephone early Tuesday afternoon. "If the police are trying to serve them, they might be waiting for the final word to recall the warrants. It is a matter of timing."

The wrongful-death lawsuit alleges that an intoxicated Arrow driver, Michael Ivan Carranza, caused an accident that resulted in the death of a motorist in June 2006 on Interstate 35 near Norman, records show.

The plaintiff's representative won a $50,000 judgment against Arrow Trucking and Astraea on Oct. 30 after the companies failed to make installment payments in a previously agreed settlement, records show. The judgment represents the balance of the amount in the settlement agreement, said Ryan Oldfield, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

Wohlgemuth said he could not comment on whether the settlement money will be paid.

Oldfield said records show that Ian P. Upchurch died as a result of the accident. He left a child, who is now being raised by Upchurch's parents, Oldfield said.

"They are raising a 3-year-old child and doing so without the assistance of their son, and it is certainly difficult," he said.

Meanwhile, Astraea has been named in an Arizona lawsuit that could shed light on the default judgment in the Cleveland County case, according to documents filed Dec. 30 in the Superior Court of Arizona in Maricopa County.

Astraea and a second insurer, Thureus Insurance Group Inc., have been ordered into receivership because of alleged irregularities at Arrow Trucking and the failure to provide audited financial reports to inspectors, records show. Thureus Insurance is also owned by Arrow Trucking and its subsidiaries, records show.

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Matt Barnard 581-8408, Omer Gillham 581-8301 [email protected] ,

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