Oliver Schmidt (engineer)

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Oliver Schmidt (* 1969 ) is a German engineer and former manager of Volkswagen in the USA . He was sentenced by a US court as the second German after James Robert Liang in December 2017 to seven years in prison and a fine for involvement in the emissions scandal . The judgment is of great public interest in the USA and Germany.

Life

Schmidt comes from Stadthagen , the district town of the Schaumburg district in Lower Saxony . He studied mechanical engineering at the University of Hanover and then worked at VW in Wolfsburg from 1997 . From February 2012 to March 2015 he held a managerial position at the VW Group in the USA and was responsible for environmental issues and the certification of vehicles by US environmental authorities. According to the New York Times , Schmidt Heinz-Jakob Neußer , the former head of engine development at Volkswagen, reported on the manipulation of emissions. Neuss passed the information on to the Volkswagen Board of Management. After his time in the USA, Schmidt returned to Wolfsburg. He was arrested by the FBI in January 2017 after a two-week vacation at Miami Airport .

Investigation and trial

Schmidt had initially denied his complicity and tried unsuccessfully to get out on bail of 1.6 million US dollars. He finally pleaded guilty in August 2017. He reached an agreement with the prosecutor that deleted several charges; this significantly reduced the maximum possible penalty.

Before Schmidt, the German VW engineer James Robert Liang was sentenced by a US court to 40 months in prison and a fine of $ 200,000 for conspiracy and disregard of the Clean Air Act . He had cooperated with the investigators as a key witness . Schmidt is one of eight former or current employees of the VW Group against whom criminal charges were brought in the USA. With the exception of Liang, the other accused are suspected to be in Germany; extradition to the USA is fundamentally not possible according to Article 16 of the Basic Law .

On December 6, 2017, Schmidt was sentenced by a federal court in Detroit to seven years in prison and a fine of $ 400,000 for conspiracy to commit fraud and violate environmental laws. In the same month he was then fired from Volkswagen.

He is currently serving his sentence (November 2019) in Milan Federal Prison, Michigan . His release is expected in 2023.

Schmidt sees himself as a pawn in the diesel affair. He is widely regarded as confessing and claims not to have acted on his own initiative. According to his own statements, he only found out about illegal defeat devices in the summer of 2015.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Philipp Vetter: The verdict against the VW manager was unexpectedly harsh. In: Welt.de . August 25, 2017. Retrieved December 29, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Martina Buttler: Trial against VW managers: "Looked in the eyes and lied". In: Tagesschau.de . August 4, 2017. Retrieved December 7, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Emissions scandal: German VW manager sentenced to seven years in prison in the USA. In: Spiegel.de . December 7, 2017. Retrieved December 29, 2017 .
  4. ↑ VW manager Schmidt sentenced to the maximum penalty. Euronews , 7 December 2017, accessed 29 December 2017 .
  5. ↑ Bill Vlasic: Volkswagen Official Gets 7-Year Term in Diesel Emissions Cheating. In: Nytimes.com . December 6, 2017, accessed December 7, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Richard Gonzales: Senior Volkswagen Executive Sentenced In Diesel Emissions Scandal. National Public Radio , December 6, 2017, accessed December 7, 2017 .
  7. ^ The Latest: VW senior manager gets 7 years in US prison. Fox Business Network , December 6, 2017; accessed December 7, 2017 ( Associated Press ).
  8. ↑ VW manager Schmidt admits guilt. In: N-tv.de . August 4, 2017. Retrieved December 7, 2017 .
  9. ^ Katrin Werner: VW manager in the USA sentenced to seven years in prison. In: Sueddeutsche.de . December 6, 2017, accessed December 7, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Martin Ganslmeier: Portrait: Oliver Schmidt: the VW scapegoat. In: Tagesschau.de. December 6, 2017, accessed December 7, 2017 .
  11. ^ Corinna Budras: Chronology of an unprecedented scandal. In: FAZ.net . January 15, 2017, accessed December 10, 2017 .
  12. ^ Bill Vlasic: Volkswagen Executive Pleads Guilty in Diesel Emissions Case. In: Nytimes.com. August 4, 2017, accessed December 8, 2017 .
  13. ^ A b c Roland Lindner, Carsten Germis: Judgment in America: Seven years imprisonment for a German VW manager. In: FAZ.net. December 6, 2017, accessed December 6, 2017 .
  14. ^ A b c Exhaust gas scandal: VW manager sentenced to seven years in prison. In: Tagesschau.de. December 6, 2017. Retrieved December 29, 2017 .
  15. ↑ Stefan Schultz: VW diesel scandal: The key witness awaits his judgment. In: Spiegel.de. August 25, 2017. Retrieved December 7, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Emission scandal America chases VW managers with Interpol. In: FAZ.net. June 22, 2017. Retrieved December 7, 2017 .
  17. ↑ Margaret Cronin Fisk, Steven Raphael: VW Executive Sentenced to 7 Years in Prison for Diesel Role. In: Bloomberg.com . December 6, 2017, accessed December 7, 2017 .
  18. ↑ dab / dpa: VW fires manager Oliver Schmidt imprisoned in the USA. In: Spiegel Online . December 21, 2017, accessed May 8, 2020 .
  19. ↑ Inmate Locator. In: bop.gov. Retrieved May 8, 2020 .
  20. ^ A b Frank Dohmen, Simon Hage, Dietmar Hawranek, Martin Hesse, Gerald Traufetter: Crash of the car bosses . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 2019, pp. 60–64 ( online - April 20, 2019 ).
personal data
SURNAME Schmidt, Oliver
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer and former manager of Volkswagen in the USA
DATE OF BIRTH 1969