Volkswagen Executive Arrested In Emissions Scandal

An Volkswagen executive with ties to the company’s scandal involving falsified emissions testing reports was arrested this week in Florida, the New York Times reports.

In the complaint, Oliver Schmidt, who was previously a general manager at Volkswagen’s Engineering and Environmental Office, allegedly played a major part in efforts to deceive regulators into believing that excessive emission from its cars were only due to mechanical issues.

According to the affadavit, Schmidt offered reasons “other than the fact that VW was intentionally cheating on U.S. emissions tests, in order to allow VW to continue to sell diesel vehicles in the United States.” The Associated Press reports Schmidt’s charges include conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and wire fraud.

Volkswagen’s emissions scandal dates back to 2014, when the International Council on Clean Transportation found Volkswagen cars produced an excessive amount of pollutants. Eventually, the company admitted to installing software on engines that allowed them to underreport the produced amount of emissions.

Since then, Volkswagen’s fallout from the emissions controversy has been costly. Last year, the company saw earnings drop in response to the scandal and it could also be asked to produce electric cars in the United States by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Schmidt is only the second employee to be arrested following the scandal. In October, former Volkswagen engineer James Liang pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to defraud the government. However, Schmidt is notably the first executive targeted in the probe.

As the Times notes, Volkswagen and the Justice Department are close to a deal to the investigation that the company or one of its partners is expected to plead guilty in. A settlement potentially could come by next week and Volkswagen has pushed to end the investigation before the end of January.