Unauthorized sky-diving instructor at center where 28 people have died is jailed for two years for fraud

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A California man has been sentenced to two years in prison for running unauthorized skydiving instructor courses.

Robert Allen Pooley, 49, of Acampo in the San Joaquin Valley, has been convicted of wire fraud relating to the courses. A federal jury convicted him in May following a seven-day trial.

Pooley first obtained his tandem examiner certification in 2010 with the US Parachute Association and the Uninsured United Parachute Technologies LLC, a manufacturer of tandem parachute systems, but later had it suspended in 2015. The suspension meant that he could no longer train future skydiving instructors on his own.

Despite this, Pooley continued running the courses at the Lodi Parachute Center. He concealed the suspension from students and continued to tell them that he had the certification, according to a news release from the US Department of Justice. He trained 100 candidates after his suspension.

In 2016, Pooley taught students from Korea, Chile and Mexico, with each of them paying $1,100 for the course. That same year, one student whom he had trained, Yong Kwon, 25, and a passenger, Tyler Turner, an 18-year-old high school graduate, died while tandem jumping after Kwon was unable to open their main or reserve parachutes.

The men’s bodies were found in a nearby vineyard.

Pooley has not been charged in connection to the men’s deaths. After the incident, several candidates asked for their money back upon realizing their certificates were not valid. Pooley refused to pay them and several had to pay for new courses at other locations.

Since opening in 1985, the parachute center has seen 28 deaths, according to an investigation by The Sacramento Bee.

Turner’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the center’s owner William Dause. The center was ordered to pay $40m but Turner’s family told SFGate they hadn’t received any damages from the suit.

The most recent California skydiving deaths occurred in August after a student and instructor, both 28, died while tandem jumping at Skydive Perris in Riverside County, the outlet reported.