A United States district judge has hit former Volkswagen executive Oliver Schmidt with a seven-year jail term.
Schmidt, 48, pleaded guilty to two criminal charges of conspiracy to defraud and for violating the Clean Air Act, Automotive News reports. A third charge for aiding and abetting wire fraud was combined with the conspiracy charge under a plea bargain.
Schmidt has been in jail since March, where he’ll stay for the remainder of his new sentence, with almost 11 months already served.
The former general manager of VW environment and engineering in Detroit was also handed a US$400,000 fine as part of his penalty, as one of eight current and former white-collar executives or engineers who played a role in the ‘Dieselgate’ emissions cheating saga. James Liang is the only other figure who has faced official sentencing.
District judge Sean Cox, who also handed down Liang’s sentence earlier this year, previously denied Schmidt’s bail application as he was believed to be a ‘flight risk’.
Liang’s early cooperation with investigators saw a 40-month prison sentence handed down, compared with Schmidt who did not.
Cox says Schmidt was an key player in the Dieselgate fraud.
“In my opinion…you are a key conspirator responsible for the cover-up in the United States of this massive fraud perpetrated on the people of the United States,” Cox told Schmidt.
“I’m sure, based on common sense, that you viewed this cover-up as your opportunity to shine. That your goal was to impress senior management to fix this problem, to make yourself look better, to increase your opportunities to climb the corporate ladder at VW.”
Schmidt was tearful while reading a letter to the court before receiving his sentence.
“For the disruption of my life, I only have to blame myself,” he says.
“I justified my decisions by telling myself that I was obliged to speak for my superiors. The man that stands before you today no longer believes that.”
Schmidt wrote to the judge explaining he learned of the emissions deception in mid-2015 when he was given “a script, or talking points” approved by Volkswagen and “high-ranking lawyers” which would guide his meetings with a Californian environmental official in August, 2015.
“I should have gone to that meeting, ignored the instructions given to me,” Schmidt says.
Emails recovered before Schmidt’s January 2017 arrest indicate he began to signal the fraud back in April 2014 when he was notified that West Virginia University had discovered VW diesel vehicle emissions were excessively above regulatory standards.
Schmidt emailed a colleague the same day saying, “It should first be decided whether we are honest. If we are not honest, everything stays as it is.”
Schmidt followed up six weeks later by emailing the head of Volkswagen America about the risks of indictment and financial penalties.