Accused VW Executive Claims to Have Been 'Misused' by Company
One of the handful of Volkswagen Group executives that have been forced to appear in front of a judge over the company’s widespread emission scandal, Oliver Schmidt, has exclaimed he was misused by his employer after issuing a guilty plea. Unless the charges are revised prior to sentencing, the former VW employee has copped to conspiracy to defraud the federal government and violating the Clean Air Act. A third charge of aiding and abetting wire fraud was rolled into the conspiracy charge.
The admission to corporate wrongdoing was made in August. However the claim that the company had taken advantage of him came later via a letter to U.S. judge Sean Cox.
“I must say that I feel misused by my own company in the diesel scandal or ‘Dieselgate’,” Schmidt wrote. The letter was filed in the court documents and later published in Germany’s Bild am Sonntag before being shared by Reuters.
Schmidt headed the Volkswagen’s environmental and engineering office in Auburn Hills, Michigan, until February of 2015. In his letter to the judge, he claimed he had agreed to follow a script issued by Volkswagen management and a high-ranking lawyer, during a meeting with Alberto Ayala, a California Air Resources Board official.
“In hindsight, I should never have agreed to meet with Dr Ayala on that day,” he wrote. “Or better yet, I should have gone to that meeting and ignored the instructions given to me and told Dr Ayala that there is a defeat device in the VW diesel engine vehicles and that VW had been cheating for almost a decade. I did not do that and that is why I find myself here today.”
U.S. prosecutors have charged eight current and former Volkswagen executives at this time. Schmidt’s legal team is pressing for a reduced sentence but he’s facing up to seven years in prison and a fine between $40,000 and $400,000 due to the nature of the crimes.
A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.
More by Matt Posky
Comments
Join the conversation
Sacrificial lamb? His belated wish that he had done something different rings hollow with me...if the script had worked, and he was in the clear, he surely wouldn't have been complaining.
Reading his claim, I can't help but think of this scene from the classic movie "Breaker Morant" when Morant and Handcock are marched off to face the firing squad at dawn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Y9pBlvkXI "This is what comes of empire building" The analogy to the film. Two Australian soldiers serving in South Africa are court marshaled and executed for what they thought were following orders to fight dirty. But to placate larger political outrage, the commanders made them scape goats and sacrificed with lives to keep piece with the Germans.