A skydiving instructor has been sentenced to prison after deaths at a parachuting school exposed rampant fraud.
Robert Allen Pooley, 49, was sentenced to two years in prison Monday following a wire fraud conviction relating to his skydiving activities in Lodi, California, according to the Department of Justice.
Pooley first earned a tandem examiner rating in 2010 with the U.S. Parachute Association and Uninsured United Parachute Technologies. Shortly after, he began teaching training courses for people seeking skydiving ratings and certifications.
Pooley’s examiner ratings were suspended by the USPA and UPT in August 2015.
Despite no longer holding the valid certificates, however, Pooley continued to to lead classes as an examiner.
Pooley lied to candidates and failed to tell them about his professional suspensions. He continued to charge students roughly $1,100 for the courses, as he had done when legitimately certified.
To keep the scheme going, Pooley assisted students with rating paperwork. On the forms, he would attach an image of a digital signature belonging to a valid examiner. His scam started to unravel in 2016.
On Aug. 6 of that year, a student who believed he was certified to conduct tandem skydives with the public through Pooley’s tutelage died in a parachuting accident, killing the student and a customer involved in the tandem jump.
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The student, 25-year-old Yong Kwon, experienced trouble with his main and reserve parachutes while descending, sealing his fate and that of his tandem jump partner, 18-year-old Tyler Turner. Pooley was not charged in their deaths, according to a report by The Sacramento Bee.
Robert Allen Pooley was convicted of fraud and identity theft in May after a seven-day trial related to improper tandem skydiving instructor courses. https://t.co/dfXvbel9so
— The Desert Sun (@MyDesert) October 3, 2024
At least 28 deaths have happened at the Lodi Parachute Center since 1985.
At least one of the deaths is not related to a skydiving incident.
Victims of Pooley’s scam demanded their money back after the deaths of Turner and Kwon, but they were all rebuffed.
Pooley’s attorneys, in a failed attempt to obtain a more lenient sentence, said the disgraced skydiver helped students by negotiating lower rates with other instructors.
“Rob Pooley,” Turner’s mother said in court, “as a direct result of your selfish, reckless choices, my son died.”
Also referring to Pooley in court, Turner’s father told the judge, “I hope this haunts him every day and every night for the rest of his life.”
He said the court should afford Pooley “no mercy.”
U.S. District Judge William Shubb took into account the deaths tied to Pooley’s instruction when applying a sentence enhancement to his punishment.
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