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Having been transferred back to Germany, he came to the United States for a vacation with his wife and was seized as he waited for a departing flight in Miami.

Having been transferred back to Germany, he came to the United States for a vacation with his wife and was seized as he waited for a departing flight in Miami. That was an expensive vacation. Seriously, good to see justice served. Curious to see what Germany does to the top execs there.

throwawayjava 9y ago
Kind of surprising that he returned to the USA (talk about cocky!) I wonder if the USA would've gone through the diplomatic rigmarole to get him extradited. Anyone familiar with these sorts of cases have an opinion?
- khuey 9y ago
  The article talks at length about how Germany refuses to extradite its own citizens, and even mentions an VW exec of Italian nationality arrested in Germany who is expected to be extradited.
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    Well, that's some egg on my face. Thanks for pointing it out!
  - kuschku 9y ago
    > and even mentions an VW exec of Italian nationality arrested in Germany who is expected to be extradited. That’s very unlikely, though. The current legal consensus is that the German constitution bans any extradition of any person to a country that has death penalty (no matter if the person faces it or not)
maxxxxx 9y ago
"Curious to see what Germany does to the top execs there." Most likely nothing from what I can see in the news.
- Tomte 9y ago
  That's why top executives' homes were raided? So that "nothing" will happen?
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    Do you really think one of the big guys will go to jail? Somebody like Winterkorn? Maybe some little guy will be made the fall guy and it will end up like banks in 2008.
IMTDb 9y ago
> Curious to see what Germany does to the top execs there. Around as much as the US doe to rich politically linked US execs. Practical example: remind me how much was GM fined, and how long did the exec serve for emission cheating ?
- WillPostForFood 9y ago
  GM hasn't been found to have cheated yet. So far there is a class action lawsuit by a private firm that has tested one truck.
  - rosege 9y ago
    What about their ignition scandal - did anyone go to jail for that?
    - Aloha 9y ago
      I'd argue there is a difference between making a faulty product and then failing to fix it, and intentionally making a device to circumvent the law. GM also paid 900 million dollars to the government as a fine and set aside 600 million to pay victims of the car. A report was commissioned which basically says GM failed to understand its own cars enough to understand why the failure was important. Another apparent compounding factor was the 2008 bankruptcy of GM. http://www.beasleyallen.com/webfiles/valukas-report-on-gm-redacted.pdf http://www.beasleyallen.com/webfiles/valukas-report-on-gm-re...
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      Intent matters as far as the law is concerned. A lot.
smartician 9y ago
German-American here, I haven't followed the case in the German media extensively, but there is a widespread public opinion that this was a welcome opportunity to punish a pesky German competitor, by throwing the book at them by the US government working together with the US auto lobby. If the same had been done by GM for example, they don't think anyone would have went to prison for even a day. The other half is asking when the German justice system will finally start their prosecution.
- pcurve 9y ago
  "If the same had been done by GM for example, they don't think anyone would have went to prison for even a day" I don't disagree that the government went after VW hard, and it's very likely that the fine would've been much lower had the same crime been perpetrated by GM. However, I think government took a tougher stance because VW was a foreign company, period; not because VW was viewed as a competitor to domestic car makers. People don't cross shop domestic and VW.
  - sanderjd 9y ago
    > People don't cross shop domestic and VW. Huh? Don't most people just shop for ... cars?
    - rootusrootus 9y ago
      Anecdotally, not so much. My next door neighbors won't buy anything but Toyota. The guy across the street is committed to Mopar. Friend of mine only looks at Subarus. My mom hasn't bought a car that wasn't from GM in decades, if ever. I'm the black sheep of the family in this regard, having owned one of almost every brand. Except VW, haven't tried something from them yet.
      - rgbrenner 9y ago
        there are stats for this: https://www.kbb.com/car-news/all-the-latest/this-week-in-car-buying-brand-loyalty-bumps-up-ford-lengthens-loans/2100000592/ https://www.kbb.com/car-news/all-the-latest/this-week-in-car... People do comparison shop and change brands.
jamoes 9y ago
> good to see justice served I believe his participation in fraud should have repercussions, but I hardly feel like caging him up for 7 years is "justice". I'm not saying I know what the perfect justice would be, but I think it should be closer to restitution to those he harmed, rather than just punishment. Ultimately, I think incarceration is a savage practice, and I hope for the day we're able to deliver justice without resorting to locking someone up. I think humanity will eventually look back at our practice of mass incarceration as quite primitive.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  Unfortunately, I really believe that jail is the only deterrent for these people. Fines aren't going to do anything; they already have enough money that they never have to work, and you're never going to fine them enough for that to change.
- hueving 9y ago
  What do you propose to do with criminals that pose a direct risk to society? (e.g. serial killers)
- tajen 9y ago
  And we also have to note that competitors may have been between the allowed bounds, but still polluting. Everyone is guilty of pollution, VW is only guilty of cheating.
  - rz2k 9y ago
    If a people and their state have decided that a million cars are beneficial enough to cost 100 statistical deaths through pollution, it isn’t up to executives at the manufacturer to decide that they really meant 200 deaths. It’s the same with other faulty products on an individual scale. People make daily decisions based on vague ideas about the risks involved, not with the idea that they avoid all risk. For example you aren’t allowed to pack a parachute incorrectly on the basis that skydiving is dangerous anyway.
- avar 9y ago
  If I kill someone and rob them of the next 50 years of their life, how long should I be in prison for? This guy, statistically, was involved in a scheme that robbed a whole lot more people of a whole lot more years than that due to the effects if pollution on public health.
djsumdog 9y ago
I dunno. Benefit of the doubt, let's go Stanley Milgram on this. He had people in authority telling him this was okay. Lawyers gave him the go-ahead. As stated in other comments, he didn't make a whole lot of money. I feel like this guy could have been a lot of people we know. You get asked to cook some numbers, it comes in all official, legal even signs off on it, and now you're liable. Whistle blowing is not an easy thing to do. Not when you're in that deep. I feel like the people at the top should be thrown in jail, but they can't because they're all in Germany. Meanwhile, is Germany going to let this guy rot, when really their government should offer to extradite one of the people at the top who had full knowledge and authorization over this, in exchange for commuting this patsy's sentence? Let's go back to the Stanley Milgram experiments. Say Milgram was a sick fuck and those people did administer a lethal dosage to the guy in the other room. Who would go to jail?
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  These people committed the systematic, deliberate, and stealthy statistical murders of dozens of US citizens. They deserve no benefit of the doubt whatsoever. They knew exactly what they were doing. "Just following orders" was not a valid defense at the Nuremberg trials and it should not be here either. Throw everyone we can get our hands on in jail pour encourager les autres. Once it becomes clear that anyone participating in such a scheme, at any level, faces years in prison, it will be less likely to happen again, and as a direct result hundreds of fewer Americans will not be murdered by illegal air pollution in the future.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    > These people committed the systematic, deliberate, and stealthy statistical murders of dozens of US citizens. Every car manufacturer currently does. Some even literally killed people by cheaping out on braking systems. Yet no US car executive is in jail. This is purely a political play.
    - xbzbanna 9y ago
      VW actively deceived regulators in a coordinated manner for months after they started investigating and asking questions about the defeat devices. This is not normal behavior for a car manufacturer or any public company under investigation. They produced tons of fraudulent data, took regulators for fools, and went so far as to stage a recall they knew ahead of time wouldn't solve the problem, all while millions of cars continued spewing cancer-causing diesel fine particulates. It would be shocking if the hammer didn't come down hard in those circumstances.

throwawayjava 9y ago

Kind of surprising that he returned to the USA (talk about cocky!) I wonder if the USA would've gone through the diplomatic rigmarole to get him extradited. Anyone familiar with these sorts of cases have an opinion?

khuey 9y ago
The article talks at length about how Germany refuses to extradite its own citizens, and even mentions an VW exec of Italian nationality arrested in Germany who is expected to be extradited.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  Well, that's some egg on my face. Thanks for pointing it out!
- kuschku 9y ago
  > and even mentions an VW exec of Italian nationality arrested in Germany who is expected to be extradited. That’s very unlikely, though. The current legal consensus is that the German constitution bans any extradition of any person to a country that has death penalty (no matter if the person faces it or not)

maxxxxx 9y ago

"Curious to see what Germany does to the top execs there." Most likely nothing from what I can see in the news.

Tomte 9y ago
That's why top executives' homes were raided? So that "nothing" will happen?
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  Do you really think one of the big guys will go to jail? Somebody like Winterkorn? Maybe some little guy will be made the fall guy and it will end up like banks in 2008.

IMTDb 9y ago

> Curious to see what Germany does to the top execs there. Around as much as the US doe to rich politically linked US execs. Practical example: remind me how much was GM fined, and how long did the exec serve for emission cheating ?

WillPostForFood 9y ago
GM hasn't been found to have cheated yet. So far there is a class action lawsuit by a private firm that has tested one truck.
- rosege 9y ago
  What about their ignition scandal - did anyone go to jail for that?
  - Aloha 9y ago
    I'd argue there is a difference between making a faulty product and then failing to fix it, and intentionally making a device to circumvent the law. GM also paid 900 million dollars to the government as a fine and set aside 600 million to pay victims of the car. A report was commissioned which basically says GM failed to understand its own cars enough to understand why the failure was important. Another apparent compounding factor was the 2008 bankruptcy of GM. http://www.beasleyallen.com/webfiles/valukas-report-on-gm-redacted.pdf http://www.beasleyallen.com/webfiles/valukas-report-on-gm-re...
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    Intent matters as far as the law is concerned. A lot.

smartician 9y ago

German-American here, I haven't followed the case in the German media extensively, but there is a widespread public opinion that this was a welcome opportunity to punish a pesky German competitor, by throwing the book at them by the US government working together with the US auto lobby. If the same had been done by GM for example, they don't think anyone would have went to prison for even a day. The other half is asking when the German justice system will finally start their prosecution.

pcurve 9y ago
"If the same had been done by GM for example, they don't think anyone would have went to prison for even a day" I don't disagree that the government went after VW hard, and it's very likely that the fine would've been much lower had the same crime been perpetrated by GM. However, I think government took a tougher stance because VW was a foreign company, period; not because VW was viewed as a competitor to domestic car makers. People don't cross shop domestic and VW.
- sanderjd 9y ago
  > People don't cross shop domestic and VW. Huh? Don't most people just shop for ... cars?
  - rootusrootus 9y ago
    Anecdotally, not so much. My next door neighbors won't buy anything but Toyota. The guy across the street is committed to Mopar. Friend of mine only looks at Subarus. My mom hasn't bought a car that wasn't from GM in decades, if ever. I'm the black sheep of the family in this regard, having owned one of almost every brand. Except VW, haven't tried something from them yet.
    - rgbrenner 9y ago
      there are stats for this: https://www.kbb.com/car-news/all-the-latest/this-week-in-car-buying-brand-loyalty-bumps-up-ford-lengthens-loans/2100000592/ https://www.kbb.com/car-news/all-the-latest/this-week-in-car... People do comparison shop and change brands.

jamoes 9y ago

> good to see justice served I believe his participation in fraud should have repercussions, but I hardly feel like caging him up for 7 years is "justice". I'm not saying I know what the perfect justice would be, but I think it should be closer to restitution to those he harmed, rather than just punishment. Ultimately, I think incarceration is a savage practice, and I hope for the day we're able to deliver justice without resorting to locking someone up. I think humanity will eventually look back at our practice of mass incarceration as quite primitive.

s73ver_ 9y ago
Unfortunately, I really believe that jail is the only deterrent for these people. Fines aren't going to do anything; they already have enough money that they never have to work, and you're never going to fine them enough for that to change.
hueving 9y ago
What do you propose to do with criminals that pose a direct risk to society? (e.g. serial killers)
tajen 9y ago
And we also have to note that competitors may have been between the allowed bounds, but still polluting. Everyone is guilty of pollution, VW is only guilty of cheating.
- rz2k 9y ago
  If a people and their state have decided that a million cars are beneficial enough to cost 100 statistical deaths through pollution, it isn’t up to executives at the manufacturer to decide that they really meant 200 deaths. It’s the same with other faulty products on an individual scale. People make daily decisions based on vague ideas about the risks involved, not with the idea that they avoid all risk. For example you aren’t allowed to pack a parachute incorrectly on the basis that skydiving is dangerous anyway.
avar 9y ago
If I kill someone and rob them of the next 50 years of their life, how long should I be in prison for? This guy, statistically, was involved in a scheme that robbed a whole lot more people of a whole lot more years than that due to the effects if pollution on public health.

djsumdog 9y ago

I dunno. Benefit of the doubt, let's go Stanley Milgram on this. He had people in authority telling him this was okay. Lawyers gave him the go-ahead. As stated in other comments, he didn't make a whole lot of money. I feel like this guy could have been a lot of people we know. You get asked to cook some numbers, it comes in all official, legal even signs off on it, and now you're liable. Whistle blowing is not an easy thing to do. Not when you're in that deep. I feel like the people at the top should be thrown in jail, but they can't because they're all in Germany. Meanwhile, is Germany going to let this guy rot, when really their government should offer to extradite one of the people at the top who had full knowledge and authorization over this, in exchange for commuting this patsy's sentence? Let's go back to the Stanley Milgram experiments. Say Milgram was a sick fuck and those people did administer a lethal dosage to the guy in the other room. Who would go to jail?

CydeWeys 9y ago
These people committed the systematic, deliberate, and stealthy statistical murders of dozens of US citizens. They deserve no benefit of the doubt whatsoever. They knew exactly what they were doing. "Just following orders" was not a valid defense at the Nuremberg trials and it should not be here either. Throw everyone we can get our hands on in jail pour encourager les autres. Once it becomes clear that anyone participating in such a scheme, at any level, faces years in prison, it will be less likely to happen again, and as a direct result hundreds of fewer Americans will not be murdered by illegal air pollution in the future.
- kuschku 9y ago
  > These people committed the systematic, deliberate, and stealthy statistical murders of dozens of US citizens. Every car manufacturer currently does. Some even literally killed people by cheaping out on braking systems. Yet no US car executive is in jail. This is purely a political play.
  - xbzbanna 9y ago
    VW actively deceived regulators in a coordinated manner for months after they started investigating and asking questions about the defeat devices. This is not normal behavior for a car manufacturer or any public company under investigation. They produced tons of fraudulent data, took regulators for fools, and went so far as to stage a recall they knew ahead of time wouldn't solve the problem, all while millions of cars continued spewing cancer-causing diesel fine particulates. It would be shocking if the hammer didn't come down hard in those circumstances.