DETROIT (AP) – A federal grand jury in Detroit has indicted former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn on charges stemming from the company’s diesel emissions cheating scandal in a plot that prosecutors allege reached the top of the world’s largest automaker.
The four-count indictment unsealed Thursday charges Winterkorn, 70, with three counts of wire fraud and one of conspiring with other senior VW executives and employees to violate the Clean Air Act. He was indicted in March.
Volkswagen has admitted to programming its diesel engines to activate pollution controls when being tested in government labs and turning them off when on the road.
Martin Winterkorn, Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG, speaks during media previews for the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2015. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Winterkorn faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the conspiracy charge and up to 20 years in prison and a $25,000 fine on the wire fraud charges. He is the ninth person charged by U.S. authorities in the case. Two have pleaded guilty and are serving jail time, while six others remain in Germany.
“Volkswagen deceived American regulators and defrauded American consumers for years,” Matthew Schneider, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said in a statement. “The fact that this criminal conduct was allegedly blessed at Volkswagen’s highest levels is appalling.”