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A Sixth Person Charged In Volkswagen Emission Scandal

DETROIT (WWJ) - The U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit has issued criminal charges against a sixth person in connection with the Volkswagen emissions scandal. Giovanni Pamio -- a powertrain development engineer at Audi -- is accused of knowingly participating in a scheme to get around U.S. pollution rules on nearly 600,000 diesel vehicles, by using software to suppress emissions during testing.

The charges state, in part, that in or about November 2015, Pamio and his co-conspirators directed a group of Audi engineers to omit key facts about the defeat devices from a
presentation they prepared for U.S. regulators to address allegations of emissions
cheating.

Pamio was in charge of developing Audi V6 development and is now facing charges of conspiracy, fraud and violating the clean air act.

VW has admitted in court that they could not meet the US diesel emission standards in an affordable measure and knowingly cheated -- developing software that read one way during emission testing (making the vehicles look clean) and then when the vehicles were on the road they polluted 40 times more than they had shown on the test.

Pamio left Volkswagen in early 2017 -- and his whereabouts are not known at this time. It's speculated that he's in Europe -- like most of the VW executives charged -- he'll be out of reach for prosecution.

VW has already agreed to pay over $4 billion in penalties in connection with the case -– the largest fine ever levied by the U.S. government against an automaker.

Stay with WWJ Newsradio 950 [Listen Live] and CBSDetroit.com for more on this developing story. 

 

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