Sentencing hearing for convicted airplane mechanic scheduled for Aug. 28

A Lancaster County man convicted in April by a federal jury of fraud, conspiracy and

obstruction of justice will appear before a judge this week at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to receive his sentence.

The sentencing hearing had originally been scheduled in July for Jay Stout, owner of Flying Tigers, Inc., based out of Donegal Springs Airpark in Marietta, Pa., but his attorneys had to deal with family emergencies and could not meet with their client prior to the hearing, according to court documents.

In preparation for the Aug. 28 hearing before U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle, III, U.S. attorney Arlene Fisk submitted a 19-page memorandum arguing for a 144-month sentence in federal prison for Stout.

Fisk argues that the 12-year sentence meets the criteria of demonstrating the seriousness of the crime. She says that Stout's fraudulent actions of providing false certifications for airplane inspections put lives in danger and violated the public's trust. The sentence also serves as punishment for Stout's continued criminal behavior during the investigation, including altering log books before handing them over to federal agents and lying under oath during testimony.

"Jay Stout has shown himself to be a conniving, unrepentant cheat," Fisk writes. "The nature and circumstances of Stout's offense and his history and characteristics support a significant sentence of incarceration."

Stout, who served as president of Marietta, Pa.-based Flying Tigers, had been indicted alongside his son, Joel Stout, 33, also of Elizabethtown, who had pleaded guilty in the case and testified against his father. Joel received five years of probation in exchange for the testimony.

The government alleged that between October 2003 and January 2010, Stout conspired with his son and others to commit fraud in aircraft parts, mail fraud and wire fraud by charging customers for the annual inspections of their aircraft, despite the absence of a certified mechanic with inspection authority, a certification that is given by the Federal Aviation Administration.

To conceal the absence of such certification, Stout and his team of conspirators prepared fraudulent certifications of annual inspections for the airplane and engine log books or, at other times, would fail to create the necessary certification at all, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia.

Some of the customers who went to Flying Tigers for annual inspections were charged for the work, although the company never provided a signed certification in the plane or engine log books recording the inspection.

Other inspections were certified in the log books by Jay Stout even though he was no longer authorized to certify such work, prosecutors stated.

Prosecutors said that the fraudulent signature of Jay Stout’s father, Gilbert Stout, even appeared on annual inspections years after the man stopped working on aircraft.

Court records show that Jay Stout was represented by West Chester attorneys Joel Benecke and Julie D. Lathia and Lancaster attorney Jerome C. Finefrock.