“Dieselgate” : 7 years in prison for an officer of Volkswagen

AFP

AFP

Thursday, December 7, 2017 12:02

UPDATE
Thursday, December 7, 2017 12:09

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WASHINGTON | A former officer of the German car manufacturer Volkswagen, stopped in the beginning of the year in the United States in the case of the “dieselgate” has been sentenced to a maximum sentence Wednesday by being sentenced to seven years in prison by a us court.

Oliver Schmidt, 48 years old and of German nationality, who plead guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence, will also have to pay a fine of $ 400 000, according to a spokesman for the federal court in Detroit (Michigan).

The justice took the view that it had contributed to the fraud software diesel cars rigged to thwart the controls emission of lying deliberately to the american authorities when issues around pollution real of these cars have emerged.

Over the seven years of imprisonment, five were given under the charge of conspiracy to commit fraud and two for breaching laws on the environment.

He has been sentenced to the penalty and the fine, the maximum under his plea. His lawyer had called to ask that he not be sentenced to a little more than 3 years in prison with a fine of 100 000 dollars.

The former head of Volkswagen had been informed in spring 2014 of the existence of a fraudulent software that is installed on some diesel vehicles from the German manufacturer for years, in order to fool tests the pollution.

Yet, ” in the summer of 2015, Mr. Schmidt has participated in discussions with other employees of VW to determine how they might respond to the questions posed by the american authorities … without revealing the software truqueur “, according to documents of justice.

Mr. Schmidt has led the regulatory compliance of Volkswagen in the United States from 2014 to march 2015. He was arrested in the beginning of the year by the federal police (FBI) in Miami (Florida, south-east) as he finished of the holiday.

7 ex-VW already charged in the USA

In the United States, Volkswagen has already incurred costs of more than $ 22 billion to repair or buy back almost 600 000 cars contested – equipped primarily for diesel engines up to 2 litres and engines with 3 liters for less than 100,000 of them – and pay their owners of the allowances. The software truqueurs were able to conceal emissions that exceed up to 40 times the approved standards.

The european giant of the automobile has provisioned an exceptional charge of € 2.5 billion in the third quarter due to the recall more complicated than expected of these diesel engines-fixing in the United States.

In August, an ex-engineer of Volkswagen, James Liang, had been sentenced by a court in Detroit, Michigan to 40 months in prison and a $ 200,000 fine for his role in the ” dieselgate “. Their collaboration had enabled them to indict other leaders of the group automobile German which Oliver Schmidt.

In total, seven officers and engineers of VW have been charged in the United States.

A study published in may in the journal Nature has estimated that by 2015, 38 000 “premature” deaths had been caused in the world by the emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) ” generated in excess “.