Volkswagen Executive Sentenced To Maximum Prison Term For His Role In Dieselgate (arstechnica.com) 101
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Wednesday, a U.S. District judge in Detroit sentenced Oliver Schmidt, a former Volkswagen executive, to seven years in prison for his role in the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal of 2015. Schmidt was also ordered to pay a criminal penalty of $400,000, according to a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) press release. The prison term and the fine together represent the maximum sentence that Schmidt could have received under the plea deal he signed in August. Schmidt, a German citizen who lived in Detroit as an emissions compliance executive for VW, was arrested in Miami on vacation last January. In August, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and to making a false statement under the Clean Air Act. Schmidt's plea deal stated that the former executive could face up to seven years in prison and between $40,000 and $400,000 in fines.
Last week, Schmidt's attorneys made a last-minute bid requesting a lighter sentence for Schmidt: 40 months of supervised release and a $100,000 fine. Schmidt also wrote a letter to the judge, which surfaced over the weekend, in which the executive said he felt "misused" by his own company and claimed that higher-ranked VW executives coached him on a script to help him lie to a California Air Resources Board (CARB) official. Instead, Schmidt was sentenced to the maximum penalties outlined in the plea deal. Only one other VW employee has been sentenced in connection with the emissions scandal: former engineer James Liang, who received 40 months in prison and two years of supervised release as the result of his plea deal. Although six other VW Group executives have been indicted, none is in U.S. custody.
Last week, Schmidt's attorneys made a last-minute bid requesting a lighter sentence for Schmidt: 40 months of supervised release and a $100,000 fine. Schmidt also wrote a letter to the judge, which surfaced over the weekend, in which the executive said he felt "misused" by his own company and claimed that higher-ranked VW executives coached him on a script to help him lie to a California Air Resources Board (CARB) official. Instead, Schmidt was sentenced to the maximum penalties outlined in the plea deal. Only one other VW employee has been sentenced in connection with the emissions scandal: former engineer James Liang, who received 40 months in prison and two years of supervised release as the result of his plea deal. Although six other VW Group executives have been indicted, none is in U.S. custody.
Meanwhile, they keep their own bankers safe (Score:2, Insightful)
after they architected the 2008 financial crisis, but when they see a bit of extra emissions they claim damages of tens of billions of dollars and put people in jail. The EU should arrest American bankers at any opportunity, to show that the EU can play the same dirty games.
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So, you are saying the jury was wrong?
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Re:Meanwhile, they keep their own bankers safe (Score:4, Insightful)
I don’t think many of us on this side of the pond would object if you arrested our bankers. I also don’t see why you’re taking this moment to give us a hard time. Can’t we take a minute to be astonished together at justice actually being served? That we’re finally seeing executives receive prison time for their wrongdoings, which is exactly what we’re always clamoring for here on Slashdot?
Is the world perfect? No. Has America gotten everything it’s done right? Certainly not. Did we get this one right? Hell, yes, so let’s celebrate this rare victory together.
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Ford and GM bought and used the same cheat device. Why are they not being brought up on the same charges?
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Ford and GM bought and used the same cheat device.
Bullcrap. Ford and GM don't even make diesel cars, and vans and trucks don't have to meet the same emissions standards. There is no reason for them to cheat, since they aren't even in the game.
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Only currently used in vans, and not in the USA.
Lemme guess, you live in an inner city and none of your effete neighbors have a Duramax/3500?
Re: This caused massive environmental damage (Score:1)
Ford and GM don't even make diesel cars
So in your mind, who makes all those diesel Fords and (until very recently) Opels with diesel engines? The elfs?
Ford and GM have been making diesel cars for decades and it is well documented that both are amongst the worst offenders in terms of real-world NOx emissions. Their defeat devices are the subject of official investigations in multiple countries.
Re: This caused massive environmental damage (Score:1)
VW is a scapegoat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal . Has anybody asked why are all carmakers breaking these limits? Perhaps it's not so wise to draw a new environmental standard without checking what engines are currently physically possible and practical? There has been very little fact checking in this all and too much mindless green rage.
Did you know a safe way to be "green" and sleep peacefully is to simply buy a big truck with much higher absolute emissions? Just because it weig
Re: This caused massive environmental damage (Score:1)
VW were the only car company stupid enough to publicly admit everything. Winterkorn thought coming clean would reduce the consequences. He was wrong.
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How much environmental damage did this cause? Quantify it. If you're going to assert that he should be killed for his crime, you should be able to identify exactly what his crime was.
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Luckily someone has done part of the work, however.
Right. And from your own link:
The researchers estimate
That's not a very scientific way to measure death, especially if you're trying to get a jury to recommend capital punishment.
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That's, to put it simply, moronic. Exceptionally so.
Unless you've been secretly tracking every photon in the universe, an estimate is the most precise possible answer.
And for example, if somebody is sentenced to death for murder, it isn't based on having been able to measure the exact amount of harm that they have done. Indeed, at the sentencing there are likely to be numerous impacted persons who give a statement on the harm that the person's death caused them; and their own accounts are stories are merely
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if somebody is sentenced to death for murder, it isn't based on having been able to measure the exact amount of harm that they have done. Indeed, at the sentencing there are likely to be numerous impacted persons who give a statement on the harm that the person's death caused them
Actually, you're wrong again. A conviction for murder requires the court of law to prove the amount of harm done, namely the end of the life of the murder victim. The victim impact statements are given by family and friends of the murder victim only because the murder victim cannot deliver them. When was the last time you've seen a third party give a victim statement in a robbery case?
Stop being a fucking moron, and start thinking with your brain instead of trying to think using your conclusions.
I would gladly hold that mirror on front of you. When it comes to criminal justice, a simple estimate is not sufficient. Exp
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Nope. I wasn't wrong, you just didn't understand the literal meaning of the words I used. That's not even my fault.
You don't comprehend the meaning of the word exact, for example. This renders your analysis moot; you're arguing against different things than the things I said.
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you just didn't understand the literal meaning of the words I used.
Oh, I understand your words quite well. The literal meaning of the word 'moron', which you wrote, is an indication of groteske disrespect.
I guess I fell for the good ol' trap of arguing with someone who would drag me down to their level and beat me with experience.
Re:This caused massive environmental damage (Score:5, Insightful)
How much environmental damage did this cause? Quantify it. If you're going to assert that he should be killed for his crime, you should be able to identify exactly what his crime was.
This seems like a silly argument. Sort of like telling the traffic court judge that you didn't kill anyone or cause any property damage, so the running the red light ticket should be dismissed. And asking for quantification of the damage? How many significant digits would you require?
The US government isn't the bad guy here. It's mostly on the Volkswagen top executives that asked the scapegoats to lie to protect the higher-ups. Note that the lying was never intended to protect the company but only the executives. It's also somewhat on the scapegoats who agreed to lie even though it was disingenuous of them to believe that they had anything positive to gain by breaking the law.
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No, it's a counter to a silly bleeding heart who's calling for the death penalty. I know it's en vogue to hate anyone who would harm mother Gaia so, but calling for his death is asinine.
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It's not at all analogous to running a red light. Running a red light creates a probabilistic bifurcation - a chance that someone wil
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How much environmental damage did this cause?
Little or none. The result of the cheating was not more pollution, just different pollution. More particulates, but less CO2. There was no known way to make their engines clean enough to pass the test while still making them reasonably efficient.
Re: This caused massive environmental damage (Score:2)
There was no known way to make their engines clean enough to pass the test while still making them reasonably efficient.
DEF.
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How much environmental damage did this cause? Quantify it. If you're going to assert that he should be killed for his crime, you should be able to identify exactly what his crime was.
I don't know how valuable these numbers really are, but the argument could thus be made that you'd have to kill him fifty-nine times [jalopnik.com] to "make up" (take revenge) for just the number of people who have lost their lives in the USA alone.
Of course, he isn't wholly responsible; what share of the responsibility do we assign to this person? How can we determine what percentage of the blame he bears?
No amount of killing people, even the guilty, will bring anyone back from the dead. I would argue that the correct "p
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The estimates are based (largely) on indirect PM2.5 due to additional NOx emitted above the limit the cars were certified for, but they fail to account for the fact that the affected engines also emit far less PM2.5 directly than the emission limit allows. If you would account for both, the end result would very likely be a negative number of deaths.
By all means, show your numbers. My point stands, there's no benefit to killing anybody over anything like this.
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So, are you saying NOX is a greenhouse gas then? Or perhaps it is the particulate matter (soot) in the exhaust?
Maybe this was about clean air and not Global Warming?
No.. All pollution results in global warming now.. It's the standard scare tactic used to strike fear in the unknowing and those who don't pay attention.
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How many people will die from climate change that this contributed to? I suspect the answer is a lot of people will. Why isn't the penalty proportional, something like being executed?
Are you dumb? The diesel engines with this defeat were still more energy efficient than gasoline engines. The effect of making it impossible for diesel engines to pass emissions is to push the industry to gasoline (or maybe coal-electric).
How about everybody calling for death because of the cheat be sentenced to death for not
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None of the bigger fish involved have been stupid enough to step on US soil
Re: Throw the book at the little fish (Score:3)
Everywhere that's not China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea is America soil. The universal Empire asserts universal jurisdiction for its cruel laws and contemptible kangaroo courts.
Don't like it? Go argue with the Air Force. Be sure to bring along your own air force.
Re:Throw the book at the little fish (Score:5, Insightful)
Yea, the guys at the top know better than to get caught. What happens is the CYA chain ends some point below them and the hapless subordinate gets left holding the bag because he sacrificed his ethics to meet his employer's demands and didn't think though things far enough to realize he'd be holding the bag.
The moral of the story is to ALWAYS act ethically and legally and never demand your subordinates do anything less either. If your management team requests that you do anything else, demand a written order before complying and keep the original signed copy in a safe place. If they demand you order your subordinates to violate this rule, make them give the order themselves...
On another note, if you find yourself collecting CYA documents, you might brush off that Resume and get out of dodge. You don't want to work for unethical people very long because they may be setting you up as the scapegoat. Don't give them a chance.
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ALWAYS act ethically and legally and never demand your subordinates do anything less either. If your management team requests that you do anything else, demand a written order before complying
A written order will do nothing for you. If you break the law, it's your responsibility.
Just say no. Escalate to your company legal team, and require them to confirm in writing that the proposed action is legal. Even then, consider whether you really want to be explaining this to a jury.
You can always get another job.
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True.... I will amend my advice in the future.
Don't knowingly break the law.
Though the problem here is that usually things are couched in shades of grey. What you are being asked to do may not be technically illegal, but may be perceived as such after the fact. One needs to understand *exactly* where the boundaries are and stay clear of them.
At one time, I worked for a company that was "re-engineering" a customer's product to make it their own. They implemented a new product that did exactly the same
He was just stupid (Score:1)
Well, in the grand scheme of things he is not significant but he was one of the few people the US authorities could get their hands on. The US authorities have filed charges against the higher ups, but Germany will not extradite a citizen to the US over this.
What happened is that this guy made the monumentally stupid decision to go on a vacation to the US, probably thinking that he would be safe because he is no big fish.
Germans Aren't Quite As "Decent" As They Seem (Score:4, Interesting)
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if he had been american - Trump would have put him in charge of the EPA.
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The funny part about how stupid this comment is; they're both rich, they'll both go to the same sort of prison, they might even end up as cellmates.
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Also, there is no way the German and other European governments didn't know this kind of cheating was happening. They knew, but turned a blind eye to it until there was no hiding it anymore.
Of course there is. They might have suspected, but they would not have done the work to find out if it might come back to bite them later. When someone else did the work to find out, they were left in a position of plausible deniability, which is the best place for a corrupt politician to find themself.
What about the bankers? (Score:1)
My first thought when I read this was, 7 years for a little pollution but nothing for the crooked bankers that sent the US economy into the toilet in 2008 and then made billions more on the way out.
Good, now how about (Score:1)
How many times in the last decade have Democrats (especially Dems, though not exclusively) been telling us that "all the carmakers support 50MPG CAFE" as "proof" that their environmental regulations weren't bonkers.
Germany and the EU (Score:3)
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Germany should have stood behind VW from day one. Instead, they embarked on a campaign against their own car industry, while largely ignoring the emission practices of foreign car makers.
You assert that foreign car makers are engaging in the same practices, but everyone's vehicles are being carefully scrutinized for emissions cheating now — I can't imagine that anyone isn't renting their competitors' cars and performing their own emissions tests in the hopes of catching them cheating, at this point — and many governments are surely doing the same, hoping for a California-esque payout. It's not actually very expensive to do a mediocre rolling emissions test, at which point you co
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Have you not read the news at all in the past two years? There have been extensive reviews by agencies in several countries and they all found that essentially every car manufacturer has been cheating in one way or another.
I've made that point repeatedly, what's different is the scale of the thing. They cheated heavily and it was in a whole lot of vehicles.
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Notice Germany and the EU hasn't done a damn thing. And no, "fines" don't count. These people all have plenty of money. Shame on the EU.
And right up until yesterday neither had the USA. Things take time, and while the USA is putting a lot of effort into crucifying one guy both the EU and Germany are instead looking at the entire industry and have only just begun to bring cases against not only VW, but also Daimler and BMW too.
Shame on the USA for scapegoating by going after one person rather than tackling the wider issue.
Re:Germany and the EU (Score:4, Insightful)
Notice Germany and the EU hasn't done a damn thing. And no, "fines" don't count. These people all have plenty of money. Shame on the EU.
I notice you don't read non-fake news. Because they have been fined, and criminal proceeding are under way, even in Germany.
What about 3 tons SUVs? (Score:2, Insightful)
Personal observation (Score:4, Informative)
A co-worker of mine used to be in senior management at VW DE (left more than a decade ago), and he said that the whole thing was utterly unsurprising to him. He said the US management was the worst cross between lickspittle toadies focused only on their personal ladder-climbing and soulless used car salesman willing to say anything regardless of facts.
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He said the US management was the worst cross between lickspittle toadies focused only on their personal ladder-climbing and soulless used car salesman willing to say anything regardless of facts.
We've seen that this describes their German executives perfectly, why single out the Americans? The Germans have lied about this issue at every turn.
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No we haven't. All we have seen is that a few German executives misbehaved. Most of them in the US, as GP claimed.
It's completely and totally irrelevant where they were working, especially since the software in question was used around the world.
The Germans have lied about this issue at every turn.
I don't think it has been established that 'the Germans' lied about this issue at all. A few people who knew about it maybe, but VW as a company confessed everything shortly after headquarters found out.
Total bullshit. They denied there was a problem at all for a long time, then they claimed for a long time that nobody in charge could possibly have known anything about it, etc etc. They gave up nothing, and had to be held to the fire on every point.
This was a real crime. Not worth chasing them down (Score:2)
Although six other VW Group executives have been indicted, none is in U.S. custody.
If they downloaded a crappy song, a SWAT team would have picked them up ages ago.
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You'd have to have uploaded it to manage criminal infringement, downloading doesn't cut it.
Don't mess with the ruling class (Score:2)
"plea deal" (Score:2)
Yay for coerced false confession! American Gulag FTW!
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I agree with this sentiment in general. I don't agree with this sentiment for the rich corporate executive.
If a poor minority kid is in the wrong time, wrong place situation, and is told to 'just take the deal, they'll throw the book at you if you dare to assert your innocence,' that's a problem.
This guy, however, had enough high-priced lawyers and what not that if he took a plea deal, it was a reasoned and informed decision. If he could have fought it with a decent chance of winning, he would have. If h
Hmm... let's see now... (Score:2)
Let's just do a scoping exercise;
1) Is the company at fault a foreign brand?
2) Is the alleged perpetrator foreign, or have a foreign sounding name, or better still a foreign accent?
???
4) Throw the book at him, and possibly make up a few extra books to ensure you really do get him
For what it's worth, the EU hasn't (yet) done too much about this, so it seems they too use much the same score sheet. You'll also note that the same is true of bankers in those two regions too. Something to think about before takin