WASHINGTON/DETROIT (Reuters) - 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.
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VW Engineer Sentenced to 40-month Prison Term in Diesel Case
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by AnonTechie on Sunday November 26 2017, @09:29AM (13 children)
I don't believe that only one VW engineer could have engineered this whole scam. How is this justice ? How about jailing all those executives who knew about this scam and went along with it ? It seems they found one scapegoat and hung him out to dry !!
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RamiK on Sunday November 26 2017, @11:37AM (2 children)
No doubt, the engineer admitted guilty following his VW funded lawyer's advice thus preventing any further investigation due to double jeopardy. And not to worry, VW will surely cover his fines and whatever else he might need during and following his imprisonment. After all, sending the right message to the rest of their engineering and executive staff is essential during these turbulent times.
compiling...
(Score: 4, Informative) by stormreaver on Sunday November 26 2017, @11:45AM (1 child)
That's not how Double Jeopardy works. Mr. Liang can't be tried again for the same crime, but nothing (except the will to do so) prevents an investigation and trial of other people for the same emissions crime.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @04:02PM
The prosecutor will have to invalidate Liang's testimony where he took sole responsibility. Regardless of the obvious appeal that to follow, the prosecutor will need to argue different, new evidences and somehow find a new crime to try Liang and the board members for... Then he'll need to connect Liang with the executives without Liang own untrustworthy testimony. And it might be stating the obvious, but if the prosecution had those evidence they would have used them by now instead of relying on Liang's testimony.
Everyone from criminal organizations to bankers pull this off all the time using convicted criminals to take responsibility over crimes they never did. Only very strong evidences help and, again, the prosecution would have used those already if they had them.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 26 2017, @11:59AM (1 child)
Of course this one engineer wasn't responsible. There were a boatload of executives onboard, as well. But, executives get golden parachutes and stuff like that. As you asy, this engineer was the sacrificial lamb, to appease the public, and the justice department.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:03PM
I wonder how widespread this practice is in Germany and elsewhere. We know VW cooked its numbers. Recently my cousin told me a similar story about the plastics factory he had run in Kentucky for a parent company in Germany. He discovered the company had been cooking the numbers on its specs for years and told his engineers and executives to stop. They would explain to their customers that they had made measurement errors and had now corrected the problem. The parent company fired him for it so they could keep on cooking the numbers.
Theoretically the government is supposed to regulate standards and ensure compliance, but most products specs probably go unmonitored. Caveat emptor to a certain degree, but in the end it's fraud and fraud is always illegal.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tonyPick on Sunday November 26 2017, @12:02PM (4 children)
According to this he's just the first, and there'll be others: From TFA
And there's more details here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/business/volkswagen-engineer-prison-diesel-cheating.html [nytimes.com]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday November 26 2017, @12:09PM (1 child)
If, however, the engineer is the one receiving the harshest sentence (which seems entirely possible), that's definitely disproportionate. And if I had to hazard a guess, the executives at VW would throw him under a bus in a heartbeat if they think it would save their own butts.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @11:47PM
Well, if they're going to throw him under a bus, I hope it's the new electric bus, that would be a fitting end.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:53PM (1 child)
This is as high as it will go. No executives will serve jail time.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday November 27 2017, @11:31AM
Yep. They've made an example of him to show they are tough on crime, now they can quietly plea deal all the executives down to (company paid) fines.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:14PM (2 children)
Isn't this old news and a dupe? https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/08/27/1239207 [soylentnews.org]
Anyway he's not a mere junior engineer or newbie. He's a senior level engineer.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/business/volkswagen-engineer-prison-diesel-cheating.html [nytimes.com]
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-25/vw-engineer-sentenced-to-40-months-for-emissions-cheating-role [bloomberg.com]
He's at the level where he's supposed to be experienced enough to know to push back if the bosses asked him to do something illegal. And where he'd have everything in writing if they insisted.
It's the job of CxOs/bosses to ask the engineers to do stuff to benefit the company (or the CxOs/bosses) that may or may not be possible. It's the job of the engineers to provide "guidance" or "pushback" if it involves breaking any laws legal or physical...
I'd be more unhappy if they had thrown the junior engineers under Liang into jail. As it is if Liang doesn't have a stash of stuff to shift some jailtime to the "real mastermind", his bosses and CxOs; or get some huge payoff from VW then he really screwed up. All senior staff around the world should learn to not do what Liang did or at least get a huge pile of "insurance"...
Happens too when building stuff - Boss says "make it cheaper, use less/cheaper concrete/steel". Engineer - "that's as cheap as we can go". Sometimes there may actually be creative and clever ways of getting it done cheaper and still be safe and the Engineer might eventually figure that out. Or it might really be impossible with current technology. The Boss normally won't know such stuff, and it's not his job to know.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday November 27 2017, @04:04PM (1 child)
This is too idealistic. In reality, if the engineer doesn't do what the boss wants (regardless of legality, ethics, etc.), then the engineer gets fired, misses out on promotions, etc.
So the engineer gets all the risk, while the executives get golden parachutes and multi-million dollar compensation packages.
The moral of the story: don't go into engineering. It doesn't pay that well, it requires too much work/long hours, you don't get to work with any women, the job security is poor, and worst of all you'll probably have to use Windows.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @02:59PM
Maybe that's true where you are, e.g. Nazi Germany. Just following orders and all that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @11:04AM
Judge Cox is a little to late. VW has since been found to have done this with additional models and brands, as have other car companies.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday November 26 2017, @11:29AM (7 children)
if Mr Liang was the most senior VW employee who was also a US citizen, he was the highest the prosecution could get to.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 5, Funny) by unauthorized on Sunday November 26 2017, @12:29PM (4 children)
Don't worry guys, the free market will solve this problem... any day now! I'm sure now people will stop buying VW products, just like they did with Sony products back when Son put literal malware on their music disks.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:41PM
Why would they do that? Let us keep in mind that the scheme in question improved the performance and fuel economy of these cars over what they could achieve with a vehicle that passed the emissions test legitimately.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Entropy on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:59PM (1 child)
Why? Because they got more powerful, better miles per gallon engines than would otherwise be possible? Diesel engines are unfairly demonized in emissions by focusing on NOx emissions, rather than looking at the many other involved factors such as that diesel engines utilize fuel in proportion to how much power output they are producing at the moment, unlike gas engines that use a ton at idle.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @12:06AM
You conveniently leave out diesel's dirty little secret...
It produces particulate matter of a size that becomes lodged deep in human lungs, and even you can't be simple enough to deny the links between carcinogenic material and cancer, I hope.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @12:01AM
And before Sony, it was Toshiba, who sold state of the art bearing manufacturing technology to the Russians some years ago, which translated into very quiet prop-shaft bearings for their boomer subs.
Yup, people stopped consuming Toshiba products in droves, not.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @09:07PM (1 child)
tell that to Kim Dot Com, and Julian Assange.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday November 26 2017, @09:21PM
Ah, yes, but they did stuff on the Internet, whereas Mr Liang was mucking about with cars.
Besides, the putcomes was just more pollution, and with the way the US administration is treating the EPA and other organiations, it isn't like they care about the environment, much, anyway.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:28PM
Wake me up when they actually punish (jail and take their wealth) somebody responsible (top 10 (should be 1) in the company).
Until then, the message is go ahead crime pays well. Just don't try it if you are not wealthy.
It will be interesting to see what the Germans do with the folks in the German company.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Techwolf on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:58PM
"generated more pollution than U.S. clean air rules allowed" -- This fact has never been proven yet by testing. I like to see a real test of pollution per mile of the ornigle car vs. the fixed car that gets less MPG and therefore dumps more pollution per mile.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @07:33PM (2 children)
Well! I certainly hope they are more humane than they were 80 years ago!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:55PM (1 child)
"80 years ago"
2017 - 80 = 1937 Really???
You must mean the Allied Prisoner of war camps:
HOW ALLIES TREATED GERMAN POWs [whale.to]
Who's gonna save you when justice comes knocking?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @07:27AM
No, I mean 1937. The assholes were already in charge then, and for sure they were torturing people. So, if this engineer is a jew, he should probably count his blessings, no?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:24PM
So much fraud, deep crises that makes hardworking people lose their homes, families and lives and not a single executive or even engineer went to prison for the American-engineered great depression. They called the securities they were selling "shit" and were quite happy selling that "shit" to investors. The world paid for their sins and no one went to prison. That is something to think about.
The diesel emissions 'scandal' (bullshit) is a non-issue. No one died or lost their family or home or job because there were a little more fumes than there usually are. And forests clear that stuff up pretty good. Financial crises on the other hand...
Those calling for prison sentences of executives need to be slapped in the face and shown the facts. Every manufacturer was cheating on emissions rules. There were no American manufacturers affected by the regulations, so there you have it.
(Score: 1) by JustNiz on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:57PM
Because absolutely no managers at VW must have known about this right?
This just shows what a mockery the legal system is.