5.29.24 Skydiving Tandem Instructor Examiner Found Guilty of Wire Fraud and Aggravated Identify Theft.

This showed up on my Google news. From the SF Chronicle/SF Gate Website.

A skydiving instructor who taught courses at the beleaguered Lodi Parachute Center in San Joaquin County has been found guilty of fraud and identity theft as part of a scheme tied to two deaths at the site.

The seven-day trial in Sacramento outlined how Robert Pooley, 49, certified student tandem instructors using a forged signature after his own license was revoked. Pooley charged around $1,100 for the courses, which enabled instructors to take first-time jumpers into the sky, prosecutors said. 

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — After a seven-day trial, a federal jury found Robert Allen Pooley, 49, of Acampo, guilty of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft related to tandem skydiving instructor courses, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, in 2010 Pooley obtained ratings as a “tandem examiner” with the U.S. Parachute Association (USPA) and with Uninsured United Parachute Technologies LLC (UPT), a manufacturer of tandem parachute systems. He then began conducting training courses for candidates seeking to obtain their USPA Tandem Instructor ratings and/or their certifications to use UPT tandem parachute systems. The Tandem Instructor certifications Pooley provided enabled students to conduct tandem jumps with members of the public throughout the United States and abroad. Pooley charged money for these courses and conducted them at a skydiving business located in Acampo.

In August 2015, USPA and UPT suspended Pooley’s tandem examiner ratings, which meant that he could no longer conduct the tandem instructor courses on his own. Nevertheless, he continued running USPA and UPT tandem instructor rating courses without authorization, and he concealed his suspensions from tandem instructor candidates. Pooley falsely told students that he was a tandem examiner, led them to believe they could obtain USPA and UPT tandem ratings through his courses, hid the fact that he had been suspended, and helped students fill out USPA and UPT rating paperwork to further the impression that the students would legitimately get their tandem ratings through his courses.

As part of the scheme, Pooley used a digital image of the signature of another properly rated USPA and UPT tandem examiner to sign off on training that Pooley himself had conducted when the other tandem examiner was not even in the country. In 2016, Pooley accepted numerous students in this manner from around the world, including the Republic of Korea, Chile, and Mexico. Each student paid approximately $1,100 for these courses. The signed documents that Pooley provided some of the students led them to believe they were certified to conduct tandem skydives with members of the public. On Aug. 6, 2016, one such student fell to his death in a tandem skydiving accident with a customer who also perished. After those deaths, numerous victims of Pooley’s scheme asked for their money back, but he did not repay them, and several students had to pay for entirely new tandem instructor courses at other locations.

This case is the product of an investigation by the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Katherine T. Lydon and Dhruv M. Sharma are prosecuting the case.

Pooley is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 26, 2024, by U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb. Pooley faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count of wire fraud and a mandatory two-year sentence for aggravated identity theft. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr/san-joaquin-county-skydiver-found-guilty-running-unauthorized-tandem-skydiving

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/deaths-california-lodi-skydiving-center-19361603.php

https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Skydive-Lodi-Parachute-Center-arrest-lawsuits-16271366.php

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/deaths-california-lodi-skydiving-center-19361603.php

If Robert Pooley was found Guilty of the Charges of Fraud and Identity Theft, does that assist or clear Bill Dause of the 40 Million Dollar Lawsuit caused when one of Pooleys Tandem Instructor Students Yong Kwon died with his Tandem Passenger  Tyler Turner at Lodi?

Why were his examiner ratings suspended?

16 hours ago, F104 Starfighter said:

If Robert Pooley was found Guilty of the Charges of Fraud and Identity Theft, does that assist or clear Bill Dause of the 40 Million Dollar Lawsuit...

IANAL but i imagine it would depend on whether or not they could prove that Dause knew about it.

18 hours ago, F104 Starfighter said:

If Robert Pooley was found Guilty of the Charges of Fraud and Identity Theft, does that assist or clear Bill Dause of the 40 Million Dollar Lawsuit

The lawsuit has been concluded.

9 hours ago, jerm said:

IANAL but i imagine it would depend on whether or not they could prove that Dause knew about it.

IANAL? what does that mean TAAGR(These acronyms are getting ridiculous)

5 minutes ago, jakebaustin said:

IANAL? what does that mean TAAGR(These acronyms are getting ridiculous)

Hi jake,

I had to look it up also:  I am not a lawyer

Quiz next Friday,

Jerry Baumchen

10 hours ago, jakebaustin said:

IANAL? what does that mean TAAGR(These acronyms are getting ridiculous)

https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=What+Does+IANAL+mean%3F



Edit to add: I had to look it up too.

On 5/29/2024 at 7:12 PM, F104 Starfighter said:

If Robert Pooley was found Guilty of the Charges of Fraud and Identity Theft, does that assist or clear Bill Dause of the 40 Million Dollar Lawsuit caused when one of Pooleys Tandem Instructor Students Yong Kwon died with his Tandem Passenger  Tyler Turner at Lodi?

This was actually a large part of Dause's (attempted) defense.

He claimed he had allowed a subcontractor to teach an independent class and took him at his word and reputation that he was a current instructor.

However, it's a not that hard for even a non-USPA DZ to check credentials. 
And very foolish not to.

Just about EVERY jumper who came out of Lodi has said very emphatically that Dause was 'king of his kingdom'. 
That he knew everything that was going on there. 
For him to claim that 'he didn't know' was ridiculous. For him to claim that the TI class was not part of the DZ operations and he didn't have anything to do with it is even more so.

I heard a jumper who had started at Lodi that it wouldn't surprise her that Dause had the TI/E shortcut the course to get the TI candidates through faster. 

On 5/29/2024 at 8:57 PM, dudeman17 said:

Why were his examiner ratings suspended?

All I could find was:

Quote

The USPA following the 2016 tragedy revealed that it had suspended Pooley's teaching certificate in 2015 because, among other issues, he was not properly completing paperwork about his students.

https://www.aviationpros.com/fbos-tenants/news/21227895/skydiving-instructor-linked-to-deadly-2016-jump-at-lodi-airport-arrested-on-federal-charges

4 hours ago, jrodrod said:

All I could find was...

Thanks. I think that's the second time I've asked that, and yours was the only reply so far. I wonder what the 'other issues' were. I wouldn't be defending the guy at all, but I'm curious whether the suspension was clerical, or how egregiously bad his courses might have been.

On 5/31/2024 at 9:10 AM, wolfriverjoe said:

This was actually a large part of Dause's (attempted) defense.

He claimed he had allowed a subcontractor to teach an independent class and took him at his word and reputation that he was a current instructor.

However, it's a not that hard for even a non-USPA DZ to check credentials. 
And very foolish not to.

Just about EVERY jumper who came out of Lodi has said very emphatically that Dause was 'king of his kingdom'. 
That he knew everything that was going on there. 
For him to claim that 'he didn't know' was ridiculous. For him to claim that the TI class was not part of the DZ operations and he didn't have anything to do with it is even more so.

I heard a jumper who had started at Lodi that it wouldn't surprise her that Dause had the TI/E shortcut the course to get the TI candidates through faster. 

DZ was non-USPA so Dause did not ask to see licenses for jumpers either so he certainly did not know everything. He may have asked to see logbooks for newcomers on a case by case basis.

But since USPA has no official authority, I'm not sure why checking credentials matters. Even if he did check, he would've had to check periodically because the forging instructor did have valid creds at one point. So even a USPA DZ might not have caught the forgeries in time.

Would be curious to hear from the lawyers on this forum on piercing the corporate veil. Doesn't sound like corporate veil is much of a concept if it can be pierced with no criminal conviction on Dause?

I saw elsewhere that the instructor whose signature was forged won a $150k judgement against USPA. Sounds like the court in that case established that any wrongdoing was solely on the forger's (Pooley) part. Does that have any effect on Dause' case? I'm assuming he's appealing the $40M judgement.

Dause had to turn over business assets including planes but I see from recent online reviews that Lodi is still doing tandems albeit in a smaller plane. How does that work if he claimed he doesn't have $40M and was ordered to turn over planes? Running a new business off of social security funds? Is any of that garnished toward the $40M?

11 hours ago, jrodrod said:

DZ was non-USPA so Dause did not ask to see licenses for jumpers either so he certainly did not know everything. He may have asked to see logbooks for newcomers on a case by case basis.

But since USPA has no official authority, I'm not sure why checking credentials matters. Even if he did check, he would've had to check periodically because the forging instructor did have valid creds at one point. So even a USPA DZ might not have caught the forgeries in time.

Would be curious to hear from the lawyers on this forum on piercing the corporate veil. Doesn't sound like corporate veil is much of a concept if it can be pierced with no criminal conviction on Dause?

I saw elsewhere that the instructor whose signature was forged won a $150k judgement against USPA. Sounds like the court in that case established that any wrongdoing was solely on the forger's (Pooley) part. Does that have any effect on Dause' case? I'm assuming he's appealing the $40M judgement.

Dause had to turn over business assets including planes but I see from recent online reviews that Lodi is still doing tandems albeit in a smaller plane. How does that work if he claimed he doesn't have $40M and was ordered to turn over planes? Running a new business off of social security funds? Is any of that garnished toward the $40M?

Many of the airplanes that Dause operated were managed by Flanagan Enterprises of Nevada.

I suffered multiple injuries when one of those King Airs crashed in 2008. Lawyers dragged out the misery for another 9 years. Even though WCB's lawyers "won" the first part of the lawsuit, it was a net loss for the wounded. I only collected one year's salary. Too bad that I was unemployed for 15 months during the trial. WCB imposed a 2 year delay for surgery, infection, deep vein thrombosis, withheld settlement funds for a year, 2 counts of contempt outside the court, PTSD, etc.

But that decision forced Flanagan to divest some assets.

Then another one of their airplanes (Caravan) crashed near Lodi in August of 2016.

Sorry to hear that, hopefully it led the FAA to tighten the screws on some regs or idk what may have helped. I think I saw Gopro footage of the 2016 crash at some point if it was the flip-over.

Looking back at the news interviews of Dause saying the forgery didn't happen was strange. He can claim ignorance but to be so certain in defending an eventual conviction and prison sentence is suspicious.