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posted by cmn32480 on Sunday August 27 2017, @11:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the trust-level-zero dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A federal judge in Detroit sentenced former engineer James Liang to 40 months in prison on Friday for his role in Volkswagen AG's (VOWG_p.DE) multiyear scheme to sell diesel cars that generated more pollution than U.S. clean air rules allowed.

U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox also ordered Liang to pay a $200,000 fine, 10 times the amount sought by federal prosecutors. Cox said he hoped the prison sentence and fine would deter other auto industry engineers and executives from similar schemes to deceive regulators and consumers.

Liang was part of a long-term conspiracy that perpetrated a "stunning fraud on the American consumer," Cox said, as the defendant's family looked on in the courtroom. "This is a very serious and troubling crime against our economic system."

Liang pleaded guilty earlier this year to misleading regulators, and had cooperated with U.S. law enforcement officials investigating Volkswagen.

Prosecutors last week recommended that Liang, 63, receive a three-year prison sentence, reflecting credit for his months of cooperation with the U.S. investigation of Volkswagen's diesel emissions fraud. Liang could have received a five-year prison term under federal sentencing guidelines. Liang's lawyers had asked for a sentence of home detention and community service.

Liang can appeal the sentence, Cox said.

Volkswagen pleaded guilty in March to three felony charges under an agreement with prosecutors to resolve the U.S. criminal probe of the company itself. It agreed to spend as much as $25 billion in the United States to resolve claims from owners and regulators and offered to buy back about 500,000 vehicles.

Volkswagen has admitted that it used software to deceive regulators in the United States and Europe from 2006 to 2015.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Sunday August 27 2017, @11:28PM (6 children)

    by Snotnose (1623) on Sunday August 27 2017, @11:28PM (#559948)

    Boss: Do this
    Worker Bee: Isn't that illegal?
    Boss: don't worry about it, let legal handle it
    Worker Bee: I dunno man, sounds sketchy to me
    Boss: Wanna get laid off next week?
    Worker Bee: Yessir, it will be done by friday.

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday August 28 2017, @12:24AM (2 children)

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Monday August 28 2017, @12:24AM (#559978) Homepage

      Among the crimes I have seen in the electronics industry over the years:

      - Selling the customer used parts as new, or selling the customer a "new" assembly with used parts in it.
      - Environmental crimes, dumping noxious shit down gutters, etc.
      - Employees being forced to use nasty solvents like MEK and Bio-solv in enclosed areas without fume hoods or breathing apparatus
      - Shitty or bogus timekeeping on government contracts
      - Bullshitting tech data on the fly even though there were no procedures for the item
      - An assembly shipped full of loose screws (also on a government contract)
      - Assemblies wired backwards, then re-wired double-backwards in the field to compensate (imagine my surprise when i opened the system up only to see a handwritten note wrapped in an ESD back explaining the situation).
      - I was not present for this one, but sunflower seed shells found in a system
      - Ridiculously dangerous large industrial machinery which frequently dropped 400-pound chunks of metal into the wash tanks from 6-ft height (and also the only job I ever literally just walked out of after getting sick of that shit).

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @11:39PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @11:39PM (#560584)

        And how many of those did you document and report?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @04:09AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @04:09AM (#560047)

      Much better than the usual "Volkswagen/HSBC/etc gives the government its cut of the loot".

      Once it starts common for lower ranks to start going to jail they'd be less likely to do such stuff or they'll start collecting evidence in such scenarios (send that to me in writing) so that others will go down too. All of which discourages those at the top.

      For what it's worth it doesn't seem he was that low in the ranks or that innocent: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-25/vw-engineer-sentenced-to-40-months-for-emissions-cheating-role [bloomberg.com]

      He's certainly no fresh junior engineer being scapegoated. He's 63 years old, he should have known it was illegal. Gather the evidence, get sacked "for not cooperating", then sue for unfair dismissal etc.

      I know some are playing up the "he's was never in management" bits but it's often the bosses job to try to push/stretch the limits, it's the supposed experts job to push back when it's too dangerous, illegal, or impossible.

      A boss may say how about we use less concrete or not wait so long (for the concrete to set or be tested). The lead engineers involved are not supposed to go along with it if it's unsafe or illegal.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @06:37AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @06:37AM (#560078)

      I've been blatantly told to lie by my boss. Fortunately it wasn't critical. Fucking company later folded.

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @09:08AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @09:08AM (#560111)

        You're not the only one who did it.

        And I've suffered the wrath of the boss after telling the truth to clients in cases I wasn't explicitly told to lie. The boss was kind of Jewish in nature.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday August 28 2017, @12:17AM (2 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 28 2017, @12:17AM (#559972) Journal

    Because in the USofA states, only the Americans that are allowed to generate massive air pollution [wikipedia.org]. #MAGA

    (grin)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @05:19AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @05:19AM (#560060)

      Your own link says the practice is illegal you moron.

      • (Score: 5, Touché) by c0lo on Monday August 28 2017, @06:19AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 28 2017, @06:19AM (#560074) Journal

        And the practice continue unabated, you idiot.

        Calling $100 fine [denverpost.com] a punishment [usnews.com] (and this if caught by a trained officer [usatoday.com]) is a sick joke.
        Especially when the offenders consider it "humor" and brag on youtube [youtube.com] - in 2017, no less.

        Some of the even do it as a political [youtube.com] statement [youtube.com] or a homophobic one [youtube.com] ... maybe you should call it "speech" and pretend is constitution defended.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @01:11AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @01:11AM (#559987)

    Putting this guy in jail and not his bosses is neither justice nor a practical deterrent.

    The lesson looks like crime pays if you are high enough in the food chain and this guy wasn't.

    But might be the Justice department is working on the guys higher and this guy is a step to get there.

    We'll have to wait and see what happens next.

    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday August 28 2017, @01:30AM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Monday August 28 2017, @01:30AM (#559991) Homepage

      They're going to have to prove that the bosses knew of the defeat device.

      Sadly, when you have an idiot boss yelling at you to get shit done and quickly, and there's a lot at stake and you can't afford to walk out of your job, all options are on the table. I made the mistake of admitting this during a job interview with Qualcomm. I guess they didn't also like my mention of treating the planners to lunch when they put my stuff at the front of a very busy line.

      In my comment above, I didn't perpetrate any of those acts I witnessed except for once -- double-backward wiring in the field. I didn't tell anybody (other than a very trusted teammate who was out with me) and that dirty action threw a good 100K of revenue on the last day of the last week of the last month of the quarter. For the size of the division I was working for at the time, that was pretty goddamn significant, like a game-changing touchdown with seconds left on the clock. I still check up on the status of that system from time to time, and it's still doing well.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @01:51AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @01:51AM (#560005)

      > The lesson looks like crime pays if you are high enough in the food chain and this guy wasn't.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/business/volkswagen-engineer-prison-diesel-cheating.html?mcubz=0 [nytimes.com]

      But the judge said Mr. Liang was “too loyal” to the German automaker he had worked for since the 1980s, and unwilling to expose its deceptive practices or walk away from his $350,000-a-year job.

      If this quote from NY Times is correct, it seems to me that Liang was fairly high up the food chain...!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @04:14AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @04:14AM (#560048)

        He was: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-25/vw-engineer-sentenced-to-40-months-for-emissions-cheating-role [bloomberg.com]

        The German national, who was head of diesel competence in the U.S., was also fined $200,000 and will be supervised after he’s released

        “Liang was not the mastermind behind this astonishing fraud,’’ but “took part in many of the pivotal events,’’ the U.S. said in court papers Aug. 18. That included developing the deficient engine and defeat device in 2006 and participating in meetings with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board in 2007 to get approvals to bring the vehicles into the country.

        He's not some ordinary engineer thrown as sacrificial lamb to the wolves, not knowing what happened...

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @12:49PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @12:49PM (#560201)

          "But the judge said Mr. Liang was “too loyal” to the German automaker he had worked for since the 1980s, and unwilling to expose its deceptive practices or walk away from his $350,000-a-year job."

          He's not very high up in the food chain at that salary.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @05:11AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @05:11AM (#560057)

      The lesson is: Don't lie to the US government, even if your boss tells you to. Instead, you should blow the whistle and under the False Claims Act, receive a nice chunk of the fine.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Monday August 28 2017, @08:00AM

      by MostCynical (2589) on Monday August 28 2017, @08:00AM (#560095) Journal

      "This guy" was the most senior VW engineer in the US.
      He is not a "worker bee",
      I suspect he is the most senior VW employee in the US who is also a US resident.
      Most of the more senior people are likely to be German citizens, and likely far harder to charge.

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Monday August 28 2017, @04:01PM

      by Hyperturtle (2824) on Monday August 28 2017, @04:01PM (#560287)

      No--this is a good deterrent.

      If the little people, or engineers like myself, see things like this -- despite the promises of wealth, and assurances that the company will be there to protect you, if you just did this thing that the executives want ...

      Then this stuff would happen far less often. The executives aren't the ones writing the software and making it happen. They're the ones asking for it.

      Throw enough existing legal precedent at someone who thinks he can get a large bonus for doing the wrong thing, and get away with it, may get him to think twice.

      We already know that doing the right thing is its own reward based on that other study, right, and sometimes the wrong thing comes with a lot more incentive. Instituting punishments on people opting to do the wrong thing can prevent a lot of wrong things despite any implied incentive.

      If the engineers are going to be out of a job, or are threatened with such -- I can't help you there. It is easy to say to quit and work somewhere else, so I won't say that, because the real scenarios are complicated. I can say, though, that freedom of joblessless is better than prison sentences. Maybe with enough time, the execs can get punished, too, to keep them from making these types of demands.

      But the demands will always come, in one form of mandate or another, be it impossible sales targets (wells fargo) or cheating on emissions, or just outright dishonesty from top to bottom.

      Regulations can get in the way, but not this time. They asked for what couldn't be done, designed and promoted and provided incentive to create a cheat to make it look like they had, and lied to the public about what they were selling. Everyone involved should get punished, and the entire chain for this sort of behavior is greatly weakened if the incentives to cheat are diminished.

      If anything, I'd want to see more people in charge of making the decisions to defraud the public to end up sharing the same cells with their underlings that were able to make it happen.

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @03:44AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @03:44AM (#560040)

    Subprime crisis

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @09:16AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @09:16AM (#560115)

      When the Jews lose control of all departments and all organizations, government or otherwise. When AIPAC dies. When ADL dies. ....

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by mattTheOne on Monday August 28 2017, @03:56AM (1 child)

    by mattTheOne (1788) on Monday August 28 2017, @03:56AM (#560045)

    Its interesting how many will continue to do business with VW after being convicted of 3 felonies, and fined BILLIONS.

    Would the common man be treated so well? Shame corporations treated better than us, and able to hide under layers of bureaucracy and finger pointing.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @06:20AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @06:20AM (#560075)

      Of course not!

      The common man couldn't survive billions in fines.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @05:07AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @05:07AM (#560056)

    Who is defending this POS? He sat in VW presentations where they lied to the EPA, and he helped set up the lies. Because of that, people died (estimates are 100 or so premature deaths). Lies like that should get you jail time at least. Are we living in some alternate universe where if your boss tells you to do something illegal, it's ok? Under the False Claims Act, he could have received 20% of the VW fine, if he had blown the whistle.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @09:21AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @09:21AM (#560116)

      "estimates are 100 or so premature deaths"

      In Iraq, millions died. In Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, [...]. Should I continue?

      Those innocent people died because of American government lies. And now you're very angry that 100 died prematurely when American government was lied to.

      PS. The Jew seems strong in your post.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @09:28AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @09:28AM (#560119)

      Coincidentally I read an article today entitled: Why did we use leaded petrol for so long?

      http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40593353 [bbc.com]

      The gist of it is that, while lead has a useful effect as an additive, ethanol is equally good and also has none of the well-known problems of lead poisoning. Workers in the oil companies were frequently going insane or dying as a result of lead exposure and yet the use of lead as an additive was pursued to the exclusion of safer alternatives.

      [quote]Why did the petrol companies push tetraethyl lead instead of ethyl alcohol? Researchers who have studied the decision remain puzzled. Cynics might point out that any old farmer could distil ethyl alcohol from grain. It couldn't be patented, or its distribution profitably controlled. Tetraethyl lead could.[/quote]

      This could have been the worst profit/health trade-off ever made in history. The Volkswagen thing is peanuts in comparison.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 28 2017, @11:01PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 28 2017, @11:01PM (#560567) Journal

      estimates are 100 or so premature deaths

      Well, that isn't very much. So how many lives were saved with this deception, which let us note, resulted in more capable vehicles, saving and extending lives through more efficient transportation and lower fuel consumption? Shouldn't we do a proper accounting here?

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