Executive feels ‘misused’ by VW

VOLKSWAGEN (VW) executive Oliver Schmidt, who is due to be sentenced this week in connection with the carmaker’s emissions scandal, has written to the judge to say he feels “misused” by the German company, a newspaper reported yesterday.

Schmidt pleaded guilty in August in the US District Court in Detroit to wrongdoing connected to a massive diesel emissions scandal that has cost VW as much as $30 billion (R411.82bn). He is due to be sentenced on December 6.

“I must say that I feel misused by my own company in the diesel scandal or ‘Dieselgate’,” Schmidt wrote to US judge Sean Cox, according to a copy of the letter published by Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

A VW spokesperson declined to comment, citing the ongoing proceedings.

Under a plea agreement, Schmidt faces up to seven years in prison and a fine of between $40 000 and $400 000 after admitting to conspiring to mislead US regulators and violating clean air laws.

In March, VW pleaded guilty to three felony counts under a plea agreement to resolve US charges it installed secret software in vehicles to evade emissions tests. US prosecutors have charged eight current and former VW executives. Schmidt was in charge of the company’s environmental and engineering office in Auburn Hills, Michigan, until February 2015.

In the letter to the judge, he said he had agreed to follow a script, or talking points, agreed by VW management and a high-ranking lawyer, at a meeting with Alberto Ayala, a California Air Resources Board executive. “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.”

After being informed of the existence of the emissions software in 2015, Schmidt conspired with other executives to avoid disclosing “intentional cheating” by the carmaker. – Reuters