Oregon regulators have suspended the operating license of a trucking academy in Hillsboro following revelations that Skyline CDL School was linked to alleged involvement in a bribery scheme to obtain commercial driver’s licenses for its unqualified students in Washington.
That alleged fraud was detailed in a story published two weeks ago by The Oregonian/OregonLive. Oregon regulators said they were unaware of Washington’s investigation and suspension of the school until contacted by the newsroom during its reporting.
Washington regulators suspended the license of Skyline CDL School in December and formally terminated it in March. The company operated two locations in Washington and was accused by regulators of using unqualified instructors, falsifying records, ignoring mandated English proficiency standards for drivers, and “more likely than not” making cash payments to a contract tester to secure passing grades for drivers, some of whom never tested at all.
As part of their investigation, regulators obtained photos of wads of cash paper-clipped to sticky notes bearing the birthdates of unqualified students seeking licenses.
Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission, which regulates private career schools in the state, on Monday suspended its prior approval of the Hillsboro school’s owners. The commission did not point to any known conspiracy in Oregon but instead cited the findings of Washington’s investigation, alleging that Pavel Terpay and Vitaliy Velikiy engaged in a fraudulent scheme there to pass students who lacked necessary proficiencies. That conduct, it said, constituted “gross neglect of duty” and “gross unfitness” under Oregon administrative rules and was cause for the suspension of their approval to operate a state-licensed career school in Oregon.
On Tuesday, the agency suspended Skyline CDL School from operating in Oregon, saying the same administrative rules prevent a school licensed by the agency from being owned by or employing an individual subject to suspension. A suspended school is prohibited from advertising, recruiting or enrolling new students but can complete training for existing students.
So far, Oregon regulators say they haven’t found red flags that could indicate fraud involving the local school. But their review continues.
In Washington, officials found that one contractor, Jason Hodson, tested hundreds of Skyline’s students and gave significantly higher passing rates than other testers. Six of those students subsequently transferred their licenses to Oregon.
Sara Keck, a spokesperson for Oregon’s Driver and Motor Vehicle Services said Thursday that it is requiring three of those drivers to retake a CDL test with an Oregon DMV tester or lose their license. Two others were licensed in Oregon since the summer of 2023 and have a clean record, and the agency has no plans to retest them, she said. The sixth driver has moved back to Washington and no longer holds an Oregon commercial driver’s license.
While no complaints have been filed against Skyline in Oregon, Keck said, “DMV is requiring all remaining Skyline students to take their CDL Skills test directly with a DMV examiner, not with a third-party tester.”
And the agency is continuing to review holders of commercial driver’s licenses linked to Skyline and any possible connections to particular testing businesses or examiners.
“At this time, we have not identified any concerning trends with current testing businesses or examiners,” Keck said.
The scandal in Washington, which had gone publicly unreported, has drawn condemnation from a coalition of national truck safety and victims’ advocates. Citing the newsroom’s reporting, three Washington, D.C-based advocacy groups have asked the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Inspector General to investigate the scheme and, if appropriate, refer it to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.
Their May 8 letter said the newsroom’s account “reveals a dangerous scheme executed by bad-faith actors to fraudulently claim students completed (commercial driver’s license) training requirements in exchange for cash bribes.” The Truck Safety Coalition, Parents Against Tired Truckers and Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways asked the federal agency to undertake its own investigation of Skyline and Hodson.
The Office of Inspector General doesn’t comment on the existence of investigations.
While their work went unpublicized, officials from two Washington agencies did appear to methodically investigate the alleged scheme, including through stakeouts of Hodson’s testing facility. The Department of Licensing and the Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board conducted multiple audits and investigations of Skyline and Hodson in 2023 and 2024. Licensing officials ultimately canceled Hodson’s testing contract in October and education officials shut down Skyline a few months later.
Citing logistics and expense, Washington retested only 74 of the 877 drivers who tested with Hodson over a period of 18 months, the vast bulk of them Skyline students. Most who showed up for retests flunked. The state ultimately canceled 110 driver’s credentials, but regulators told the newsroom they couldn’t be sure they’d acted on all the drivers involved in the alleged scheme, including those who transferred their licenses to Oregon.
Peter Reed, assistant administrator of the commercial driver license program at Washington’s Department of Licensing, told the newsroom that his agency had taken all regulatory actions authorized under state law, but it had no pipeline to directly refer the matter to law enforcement.
That stance rankled safety advocates, who provide support to victims and survivors of truck crashes and push for more effective policy and rules to reduce deaths and injuries.
“Fraudulent CDL training schools and complicit examiners rarely face substantial consequences for their role in profiteering at the expense of public safety,” their letter said. “This abhorrent behavior will continue unless strong enforcement and deterrence occurs.”
Last month, a former state trooper in Massachusetts pleaded guilty to various charges after accepting bribes to give “automatic passing scores” to at least 17 commercial driver’s license applicants in that state, using the code words “golden handshake” or “golden” to identify applicants designated for special treatment, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Massachusetts. Charges are still pending against other participants in the scheme.
In 2019, a commercial license tester in Mississippi was sentenced to 15 months in prison after being convicted of falsifying records after accepting cash payments to provide passing grades on exams there. That same year, two men in California, including an employee at that state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, were sentenced to 37 and 12 months in prison, respectively, after a similar scheme to provide passing CDL grades in exchange for cash payments.
The coalition’s request for an investigation of Skyline also comes in the wake of an executive order signed April 28 by President Donald Trump that directed the Secretary of Transportation, in part, to take “appropriate actions to improve the effectiveness of current protocols for verifying the authenticity and validity of both domestic and international commercial driving credentials.”
The advocates’ letter said truck crashes were unacceptably high, with “nearly 5,500 killed in the last year on record and more than 150,000 injured. Since 2009, truck crashes have increased by a disturbing 62%. Inadequately and fraudulently trained truck drivers have no place on America’s roads and highways.”
Before suspending Skyline CDL School in Hillsboro, Oregon regulators fined the company $500 in March for failing to report the disciplinary actions in Washington.
On May 7, five days after the newsroom’s story was published, Skyline informed Oregon’s higher education commission that it planned to close its Hillsboro school on May 23, after completing instruction for students currently enrolled.
The commission suspended Skyline anyway and asked the company to submit a closure plan or change in ownership documentation by June 1.
Commission officials previously said they received a new ownership application but have declined to say when it was submitted or by whom. Endi Hartigan, a spokesperson for the agency, said Thursday that the owners could submit another application, but the commission would take the suspension into account in determining whether to approve it.
©2025 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
