Former VW Managers Sentenced Over Emissions-Cheating Scandal
www.occrp.org
A German court has sentenced two former Volkswagen executives to prison and handed suspended sentences to two others for their roles in the company’s diesel emissions scandal.
  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    139·
    28 天前

    I long for the day that ANYTHING close to this happens in the USA

    I guess you’ve good news, then.

    Across the Atlantic, two former VW engineers — Oliver Schmidt and James Robert Liang — are already serving prison sentences in the U.S. Schmidt, who once led VW’s environmental office in the U.S., was sentenced to seven years after initially denying guilt but later reaching a plea deal. Liang received 40 months after cooperating with prosecutors.

    • frezik@midwest.socialEnglish
      95·
      28 天前

      To salvage the argument, it’s quite possible this would have been different if they were from GM rather than VW.

      • CosmoNova@lemmy.worldEnglish
        38·
        28 天前

        It most likely would‘ve. Just look how quickly US courts started to turn Monsanto into shreds the very second Bayer bought it. They‘re after that so called stupid German money. Wouldn‘t work if it was American money.

      • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
        10·
        28 天前

        I am surprised VW clowns got the prison tbh but i am sure there is a reason why it actually happened here.

        System fucked up lol

    • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      55·
      28 天前

      two former VW engineers

      Yeah, unless they are Chief Engineers, these two are just people who got caught in the churn.

      Wake me up when the President of US Operations gets sentenced to prison. Hell, I’ll even be okay with club Fed.

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        9·
        27 天前

        Neither were the people in Germany.

        The court sent the former head of diesel engine development behind bars for four years and six months, and the former head of powertrain electronics to two years and seven months. Two others — Volkswagen’s former development director and a former department head — received suspended sentences, according to Der Spiegel and Deutsche Welle reports from the Braunschweig courtroom.

        The (now ex-) CEO of VW, Winterkorn, is a fugitive from justice in US – the reason he isn’t in prison in the US is because he’s hiding in Germany, and Germany doesn’t extradite its nationals. IIRC from memory back during the incident, he’s facing a total of over two hundred years in potential sentence from the charges, though some of that would probably run in parallel, were he convicted, and I assume that in practice, there’d be some sort of plea deal.

        EDIT: Maybe it was over one hundred, not two hundred. I distinctly remember trying to figure out whether the sentences could run in parallel when reading an article about it at the time. In practice, he’d probably plea bargain it down, but there also is no parole for federal sentences in the US, so he wouldn’t be getting out early, either.

        EDIT2: Also, because he’s a fugitive and it’s a federal crime:

        https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3290

        18 U.S. Code § 3290 - Fugitives from justice

        No statute of limitations shall extend to any person fleeing from justice.

        So I expect that he’s probably going to stay in Germany for the rest of his life, unless he can find some other location that wouldn’t extradite him (Russia?)

        • ascense@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          27 天前

          According to Wikipedia, he should have a criminal trial in Germany starting this year, so it’s possible he will still get sentenced there as well.

    • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      27 天前

      This is the most unbelievable part: a us court held management responsible for criminal behavior? Did that not pay their fines? Did no one have a spare jet to offer?