A former Volkswagen engineer pleaded guilty Friday for defrauding the U.S. and customers in the Dieselgate scandal, the first such conviction in a U.S. court.
James Robert Liang, a 62-year-old California man, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, the Justice Department announced. He also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act.
Liang was indicted in June under seal by a grand jury and the indictment was unsealed Friday.
Liang was a Volkswagen employee in Germany from 1983 until 2008. He admitted that in 2006 he and other co-conspirators designed a new diesel engine that could not meet strict U.S. air quality standards. To get around those standards, Liang and his colleagues designed “defeat device” software that would be able to tell when the vehicle was undergoing emissions testing and when it was in normal driving conditions, the Justice Department said. The defeat device software would cause the diesel engine to emit less nitrogen oxide when it was in testing mode but then would dump 40 times the legal amount during normal driving conditions.
Nitrogen pollution can cause smog and release fine particulate matter into the air. Those pollutants are linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses that can cause premature death. Children, the elderly and people with pre-existing conditions see increased risk for harm when they are exposed to the pollutants, the EPA says.
Liang moved to the U.S. in 2008 to help launch the “clean diesel” vehicles in the United States. He admitted he and his colleagues lied to U.S. regulators about whether the vehicles complied with U.S. air standards and didn’t reveal the existence of the defeat device software, according to Justice.
Those lies continued from 2009 until last year, Justice said.
“Liang admitted that during this time, he and his co-conspirators knew that VW marketed its diesel vehicles to the U.S. public as ‘clean diesel’ and environmentally friendly, and promoted the increased fuel economy,” a statement read. “Liang and his co-conspirators knew that these representations were false and that VW’s diesel vehicles were not ‘clean,’ he admitted.”
The case has been assigned to a federal district court in Detroit for sentencing.
About 585,000 vehicles in the United States were equipped with the defeat device software by Volkswagen. The company is paying a $14.7 billion settlement in connection with the scandal.
The scandal forced top company officials to resign and led to a drop in sales for the German automaker.
