Oliver Schmidt, a German citizen and former Volkswagen manager in Michigan, was sentenced on Wednesday to seven years in prison and a $400,00 fine for his part in the diesel emissions tests scandals.
Most of those suspected of conspiring to defraud United States regulators are out of reach of American justice in Germany, which normally does not extradite its own citizens. After being transferred back to Germany, he and his wife came to the United States for a vacation and was seized as he waited for a departing flight in Miami.
Before imposing the sentence, Judge Sean F. Cox admonished Mr. Schmidt for his actions and described him as a crucial figure in a wide-ranging plot. “You are a key conspirator responsible for the cover-up in the United States of a massive fraud perpetuated on the American consumer,” the judge said at the end of the nearly two-hour hearing.
Read the original article at The New York Times.