DETROIT – A federal judge in Detroit sentenced a former Volkswagen executive to seven years in prison for his role in the company's emissions scandal.
Oliver Schmidt, 48, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Sean Cox and also received a fine of $400,000.
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Schmidt has been in custody since January, when he was arrested in Miami. He will be given credit for the time he has already served in prison.
He pleaded guilty in August to conspiring to defraud the United States and violating the Clean Air Act. He received the maximum possible sentence: Five years for the conspiracy charge and 24 months on the second count.
In exchange for his plea, federal prosecutors dropped multiple counts of wire fraud, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Schmidt agreed to be deported to Germany after serving his sentence.
Schmidt ran Volkswagen's U.S. engineering and environmental office from 2012 through early 2015 and was responsible for obtaining regulatory approval for vehicles sold in the United States.
Schmidt's lawyer, David DuMouchel, of Detroit, asked for a maximum sentence of 40 months in prison and a $100,000 fine.
Schmidt is one of eight people charged by U.S. authorities in the emissions scandal, which involved installing software in around 500,000 Volkswagen 2.0-liter diesel vehicles sold in the United States from 2009 through 2015 to make U.S. authorities believe the vehicles met U.S. emissions standards.
Volkswagen auto engineer James Liang was sentenced in August to 40 months in prison and fined $200,000 for his role in the scandal. He received four months more than prosecutors recommended.
Six current or former Volkswagen or Audi executives charged in the United States for the emissions scandal remain at large, including Richard Dorenkamp, Heinz-Jakob Neusser, Jens Hadler and Bernd Gottweis, who were indicted in the same criminal case as Liang and Schmidt.
Former Audi executive Giovanni Pamio also remains at large. He's charged in a federal criminal complaint for his alleged role in the emissions scandal. Audi is a subsidiary of Volkswagen.
In March, Volkswagen AG pleaded guilty to three felonies and agreed to pay a $2.8 billion criminal fine. The company also paid more than $10 billion in civil settlements resulting from the fraud, officials said.