LOS ANGELES (CN) — A onetime U.S. Olympic snowboarder was sentenced to six months in prison for obstructing a federal investigation into an airplane crash he deliberately arranged for a YouTube video.
Trevor Jacob, 30, was spared the 12-month prison term prosecutors sought at his sentencing Monday in downtown Los Angeles.
"I apologize from the bottom of my heart," Jacob said in a tearful plea for leniency at Monday's hearing. "I look back in complete shame on my conduct."
U.S. District Judge John Walter, while acknowledging that Jacob's regret for the Nov. 24, 2021, stunt was sincere, said the offense required a prison sentence and not just probation, as his attorney had suggested.
"This was a scheme to gain notoriety and money," Walter said. "It's hard to reconcile his law-abiding life with the incredibly poor decisions he made."
Jacob was part of the U.S. Olympic team during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, where he got as far as the semifinal competition in men's snowboard cross. According to his attorney, Keri Axel, he was in a dark and lonely place, living in alone in his hangar at Lompoc Airport in Southern California in late 2021, when he concocted the plan to parachute from his single-engine, light airplane and film the plane crash in the mountains.
Before taking off, Jacob had mounted several video cameras on the plane and equipped himself with a parachute, video camera and selfie stick.
He ejected himself from the aircraft about 35 minutes after he took off, while flying above the Los Padres National Forest, and filmed himself parachuting to the ground, the mounted cameras recording footage as the plane descended and crashed.
Jacob hiked to the airplane wreck and recovered the tapes. He reported the crash a few days later to the National Transportation Safety Board, but when an investigator told him he had to preserve the wreckage, Jacob said he didn't know where it was.
IIn early December, he hired a helicopter company to remove the plane from the crash site. He took it to his hangar at Lompoc Airport and cut it up, while continuing to claim to the federal investigator that he didn't know the location of the wreckage.
That December, he posted the video of the stunt on YouTube, titled “I Crashed My Airplane," as part of a sponsorship deal with a wallet business.
Jacob pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of destruction and concealment with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation, a crime that carries a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.
At Monday's hearing, he told the judge that he wanted to compete again for a place on the U.S. Olympics team.
Follow @edpettersson
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
Finger guns in court April 24, 2024 -
-
Colorado judge sentences serial suer to 12 years in prison April 24, 2024 -
