6 Volkswagen Employees Indicted in Emissions Scandal

VW will pay $4.3B penalty
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jan 11, 2017 2:07 PM CST
6 Volkswagen Employees Indicted in Emissions Scandal
In this Oct. 13, 2015, file photo, a Volkswagen Touareg diesel is tested in the Environmental Protection Agency's cold temperature test facility in Ann Arbor, Mich.   (Carlos Osorio)

Six high-level Volkswagen employees have been indicted by a grand jury in the company's diesel emissions cheating scandal, as the company admitted wrongdoing and agreed to pay a record $4.3 billion penalty, the AP reports. The federal indictments and plea deal were announced Wednesday by the Justice Department in Washington involving the pollution violation and an elaborate and wide-ranging scheme to cover it up. It's the largest penalty ever levied by the government against an automaker. The deal also requires VW to cooperate in an ongoing probe that could lead to the arrest of more employees. At a press conference Wednesday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said "Volkswagen obfuscated, they denied, and they ultimately lied."

VW installed software into diesel engines on some vehicles that allowed the engines to turn on pollution controls during government tests and switch them off in real-world driving. The software, called a "defeat device" because it defeated the emissions controls, improved engine performance but spewed out harmful nitrogen oxide at up to 40 times above the legal limit. Regulators confronted VW employees about the use of the software in the summer of 2015. Volkswagen at first denied using the defeat device, but finally admitted to it in September of that year. Government documents accuse six VW supervisors of lying to environmental regulators or destroying computer files containing evidence. (More Volkswagen stories.)

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