Soon afterward, in October, he was charged with fraud for passing $175,000 in bad checks at Las Vegas casinos, many of which he'd stolen from KVEG's owner. He'd passed most of the checks at Treasure Island. When he pleaded guilty, federal prosecutors were initially willing to go easy on him and offer a deal that would let him self-report to a federal prison camp for a sentence of 15 months. However, when prosecutors learned that he'd been passing bad checks in Indiana as well, they persuaded a judge to remand him to custody. In January 1995, he was sentenced to two years in prison. Prosecutors later discovered Schlichter had passed $500,000 in bad checks in Indiana, Nevada, and his native Ohio.