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VW Engineer Sentenced To 40-Month Prison Term In Diesel Case (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the payback's-a-bitch dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 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 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. 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.

4 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Makes sense. by WolfgangVL · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Part of what you pay an engineer to do is take responsibility for things. That's why you need a cert to call yourself a "Professional Engineer" Same concept as a bridge falling. Some technical person put his approval on it as the end-all, so that technical person takes responsibility. It's part of his/her job. I think the execs should all get smacked a little harder too, but this is fitting.

    --
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    1. Re:Makes sense. by coolmoe2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That makes no sense what he engineered worked perfectly for many years so his part of the job was fine by an engineering standpoint. What does not make any sense at all is why the executives that ordered the emissions cheating software are not the ones doing the time.

  2. So Diesel is bad? by boudie2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So if it's such a crime against humanity for what VW did with their diesel cars then where is the outrage over all the big semi-trailer trucks? Seems like hypocrisy. After all those big trucks only get 4-8 m.p.g.. Which puts out the most NOX emissions? Ditto for the big 4x4 diesel pickups. Half of them I hear going up the road sound like they don't even have mufflers on them. Never liked diesels.

  3. Re:Curious by slew · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That an engineer would have the ability to set policy for a multinational car company.

    FWIW, James Liang isn't just some lowly engineer who toiled in obscurity at VW, Liang was a key member of the team that developed the EA189 engine in 2006 at VW in Germany. When the team realized that the engine wouldn't meet US's new 2007 NOx emissions requirements, Liang lead the team that created the software defeat scheme. He was later transferred to the US to as VW’s “Leader of Diesel Compliance” and was apparently one of the engineering representative meeting directly with EPA and CARB officials when confronted with the evidence, they lied about the existence of the defeat device.

    Apparently someone else on the team (an as of yet undisclosed collaborating witness VW employee) latter tipped off the CARB and decided to cooperate with the FBI investigation into the matter. Since Liang was the engineer at the meeting with the regulators, he is taking some of the blame (by all reports, he seems to be pretty remorseful about his role and is cooperating with the investigation).

    Another twist in this whole saga, Oliver Schmidt, 48, who headed the company's regulatory compliance office in the U.S. and has also been arrested in this matter, apparently wrote an email to another VW manager explaining that one employee would not be coming to a meeting with California regulators "so he would not have to consciously lie." I think we can assume that the employee mentioned wasn't Engineer James Liang.

    Well, that engineer should have the ability to not lie about implementing a specific policy on behalf of a multinational car company. Of course it would have probably taken steel balls to actually resist the pressure, it is still within one's ability...

    Sometimes it just sucks to be you, but that is life.

    I've not taken such a grand stand IRL, so I don't know the pressure, but I've take smaller stands, and I'm pretty sure my career has taken hits because of it. I don't have a high profile job, but at least I can sleep at night in my own bed. Sometimes you have to pick your own poison. There's a reason why some other folks get paid the big bucks...

    Just food for thought.