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Investigations

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North Carolina Pilot Sentenced to 21 Months for Flying Without a Pilot’s License

On June 1, 2016, Paul Douglas Tharp was sentenced in U.S. District Court, Greensboro, NC, for serving as an airman without an airman’s certificate and filing a false tax return. He was sentenced to 21 months incarceration, 3 years supervised release, and ordered to pay $285,028 in restitution to the IRS. He pled guilty to the charges in January 2016.

Tharp admitted that he flew his aircraft four times while his pilot certificate was suspended. He also falsely represented himself as a mechanic who held a FAA Powerplant rating. He performed repairs on aircraft engine parts and falsified the maintenance record logs. 

Tharp was previously convicted and sentenced in May 2015 in U.S. District Court, Charlotte, NC, for serving as an airman without a certificate and providing false statements to an FAA investigator. In that case, he was sentenced to 60 days incarceration, 3 years of probation, and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine. He was also ordered to sell his airplane and not enter an airport for 3 years, unless to fly commercially as a passenger.