The U.S. Justice Department said a Volkswagen engineer has been charged as part of its criminal probe into the German automaker’s diesel emissions scandal.
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James Robert Liang, 62, of Newberry Park, California, entered the plea Friday in U.S. District Court in Detroit to one count of conspiracy to defraud the government through wire fraud.
The complaint says Liang and others deceived USA regulators in order to obtain necessary certificates to sell diesel vehicles, sold VW diesel vehicles to customers knowing they didn’t meet emission standards, deceived US customers by marketing them as “clean diesel” when they in fact weren’t and concealed the defeat device from USA regulators, VW customers and the USA public.
Although the company has been working on a repair for the vehicles for months, it appears that VW may not be able to fix the cars and will have to buy them all back, according to the documents. Liang faces a penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
In 2014 and 2015, he was conducting tests at the company’s Oxnard, California, facility as part of Volkswagen’s effort to hide from regulators that the defeat devices were responsible for the illegal emissions, according to the NY complaint.
Earlier this summer Volkswagen reached a settlement with USA regulators and the State of California under which the automaker agreed to pay $16.5 billion to owners, dealerships and regulators.
Jeannine Ginivan, a Volkswagen spokeswoman, declined to comment on Liang’s guilty plea. They included several managers whom an internal investigation found had turned a blind eye to the effort.
Top-ranking auto executives have rarely been prosecuted in their companies’ scandals. Owners with gasoline cars are not eligible to receive compensation.
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