Federal aviation administration safety inspector sentenced to one Year in prison for accepting bribes over a seven-Year period
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
April 18, 2012 |
CAMDEN, N.J. – An aviation safety inspector with the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) who admitted accepting tens of thousands of dollars of “tips” in exchange for hundreds of unauthorized pilot check rides was sentenced today to one year in prison, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
Harrington Bishop, 64, of Browns Mills, N.J., previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler in Camden federal court to an Information charging him with one count of receiving illegal gratuities by a public official. Judge Kugler imposed the sentence today in Camden federal court.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
Bishop was an aviation safety inspector with the FAA assigned to the Teterboro Flight Standards District Office (“FSDO”) in Saddle Brook, N.J. From May 2004 through February 2011, Bishop spent hundreds of weekends, holidays, and other days of approved leave taking pilots out on flight checks at Cave Flight School at the Flying W Airport in Medford, N.J. These tests ranged from private pilot tests to airline transport pilot certificate tests. None of these flight checks was authorized by the Teterboro FSDO or any other authority within the FAA.
Bishop admitted that these hundreds of tests over the seven-year period nearly always resulted in the pilot passing the test. Even though the flights were not authorized by the FAA, the pilots became officially licensed, certified or certificated by the FAA as a result of Bishop’s official acts. In exchange for these hundreds of check flights, Bishop generally collected $300 tips from the pilots, fully aware that he was not allowed to accept payment from pilots or anyone else in exchange for the performance of his official duties.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Kugler sentenced Bishop to one year of supervised release, fined him $5,000 and ordered him to forfeit $70,000.
U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of the Inspector General, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Douglas Shoemaker, for the investigation leading to today’s sentence.
The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott B. McBride of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Healthcare and Government Fraud Unit.
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Defense counsel: Jay V. Surgent Esq., Lyndhurst, N.J.
