Four former Volkswagen employees convicted of fraud in dieselgate emissions cheating scandal
Four former Volkswagen employees were found guilty of fraud in a 2015 trial over the '
Landgericht Braunschweig: Haft für frühere VW-Manager wegen Dieselaffäre! | Geld | BILD.de
https://www.bild.de/geld/wirtschaft/landgericht-braunschweig-haft-fuer-fruehere-vw-manager-wegen-dieselaffaere-68341b6e7f7de9084f87adc8
Four Former VW Managers Found Guilty in Emissions Trial - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/26/business/volkswagen-emissions-trial.html
German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal – POLITICO
https://www.politico.eu/article/german-court-vw-execs-prison-dieselgate-scandal-volkswagen-environment-illegal-pollution/
In September 2015, the US Environmental Protection Agency discovered that many of Volkswagen's diesel vehicles were equipped with illegal defeat devices that reduced harmful emissions only during emissions tests.
The defeat device installed in Volkswagen cars detected when the vehicle was undergoing an emissions test and adjusted its performance to meet environmental standards only during the test. However, when the vehicle was actually on the road, it emitted pollutants that far exceeded the standards.
When Volkswagen admitted in 2017 to falsifying emissions data in the US, it became one of the biggest scandals in history to engulf the entire European auto industry.
Due to the recent slump in EV sales, the European auto industry, which had been leading the Japanese and American auto industries in the shift to EVs, has been forced to
In 2019, German prosecutors charged Volkswagen's then-CEO Herbert Diess, then-Chairman Hans-Dieter Diess, and Martin Winterkorn, who resigned as CEO shortly after the Dieselgate scandal broke, with market manipulation in connection to emissions fraud.
In 2020, a German court closed the proceedings against Diess and Diess after Volkswagen paid a total of 9 million euros (about 1.46 billion yen) to each of them for fines related to the scandal. Winterkorn continues to deny the allegations.
On May 26, 2025, the Braunschweig District Court found four former Volkswagen employees who had been indicted separately from Diess guilty of fraud. The reading of the verdict lasted four hours.
As a result, Jens Hadler, the former head of diesel engine development, who was deeply involved in the illegal software, was sentenced to four years and six months in prison, and Hanno Jelden, the former head of drive electronics, was sentenced to two years and seven months in prison.
Heinz-Jakob Neusser, former head of brand development, is the highest-ranking of the four, but was given a suspended sentence of one year and three months due to his relatively minor connection to the fraud, while Torsten D., a lower-ranking manager involved in developing the counterfeit software and whose name has not been disclosed, received a suspended sentence of one year and ten months.
The ruling is not final and the four can appeal.
Winterkorn was originally scheduled to appear as a witness in the trial, but this has been put on hold since he withdrew in September 2021 for health reasons.
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