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VW Engineer Sentenced To 40-Month Prison Term In Diesel Case (reuters.com)
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.
But the President who instantly retired the moment diesel gate broke. Took his 50 mil pension plan, walks away Scott free. Sounds legit
The engineer gets prosecuted for decisions signed off by the executives?
...but $200,000 for an engineer combined with the 40 months? If they're going to do that to the engineer following instructions, then they better be much harsher on the executives and managers that told the engineer to do it in the first place.
Let's keep those profits rolling, we have engineers to burn! America needs to wise up and start jailing the senior management. It's sad times for America when South Korea is the one with balls while America just rolls over and takes it.
I guess everyone needs an indemnification clause in their contract. Else good luck with any software development for military, public transportation, autonomous cars, health, and so on....
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.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
As an engineer, this is not surprising, but it is also disappointing. Given how dishonest VW has been, it would not surprise me to find out that they convinced this guy he was going to prison anyway (engineers have unseverable criminal liability in most modern countries regarding both fraud and willful negligence) and his family has a pallet of hundred dollar bills sitting in their garage (or in a Swiss bank account) to keep this engineer from testifying against middle and upper management, as well as a few C-level executives. There is no way that this happened in a vacuum without management knowing about it.
The couple of times I have been asked to do something morally questionable as an engineer and on several occasions when I saw a design error that presented the risk of death or great bodily injury, I made sure to follow up my concerns with a summarizing email to the the manager and his manager, and BCC myself on my personal email. The middle management squeals like a stuck pig over that kind of accountability, but engineers have a very real moral responsibility to protect society beyond most other professions. That has always resolved the issue, but I am always prepared to go directly to the CEO or if that doesn't work, state officials. When engineers don't have that level of commitment to protecting the public, scores of people can be injured or killed. In one instance, a space shuttle exploded.
Besides that, enriching someone else is the absolute dumbest reason I can think of to go to prison. Criminals in general are pretty stupid, but at least they have figured out that if you are going to rob a bank, you rob it for yourself, not stock holders or managers...
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
I think the title of the slashdot article is misleading. While he was a VW Engineer he is currently a VW Executive. Also, he isn't the only one charged.
"U.S. prosecutors have charged eight current and former Volkswagen executives in connection with the diesel emissions cheating probe. Liang is one of the lowest-ranking executives charged so far."
Part of the reason they fined him and sentenced him to jail was his "pivotal" role in the fraud.
He has had 10 years to come clean and hasn't done it. So I think he deserves what is coming to him, and the other executives as well.
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.
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.
No, he was sent to jail because VW lied about it on three separate occasions to US regulators and got caught on discrepancies multiple times over the course of a decade. It was the final time that the exact nature of their corruption was uncovered and what they got the smackdown for.
Great book, but not really relevant to this issue. At least not in the way you presented. US companies are subject to the same regulations as VW, so this isn't really favoritism for financial advantage to US companies. What you could say however, is that it pushes along the fall of Europe to fascist communist rule, since the actual people responsible are not facing charges or jail. Those people remain free and wealthy, while the lackey gets jack booted.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.