A federal court judge in Detroit sentenced a former Volkswagen manager Wednesday to 7 years in prison and ordered him to pay $400,000 in the company's massive diesel emissions cheating scandal, but Judge Sean Cox made clear that justice has not yet been served.
Cox described the ex-manager, Oliver Schmidt, as an opportunist and a significant player in Volkswagen's attempted cover-up. But he also noted that "senior management has not been held accountable" in a case that has hurt both consumers who thought they were getting a good product and blue-collar and middle-management workers at VW. He said the VW case "attacks and destroys" the foundation of the country's economic system -- the trust between buyers and sellers.
Cox had harsh words for Schmidt, seeing no excuses for the highly educated mechanical engineer. He doesn't suffer from the substance abuse common among criminal, comes from a good family and was well-off financially, with a $130,000 base salary, $40,000 annual bonuses and a net worth of $1 million.
https://www.freep.com/story/money/c...-scandal-oliver-schmidt-sentencing/924278001/
Cox described the ex-manager, Oliver Schmidt, as an opportunist and a significant player in Volkswagen's attempted cover-up. But he also noted that "senior management has not been held accountable" in a case that has hurt both consumers who thought they were getting a good product and blue-collar and middle-management workers at VW. He said the VW case "attacks and destroys" the foundation of the country's economic system -- the trust between buyers and sellers.
Cox had harsh words for Schmidt, seeing no excuses for the highly educated mechanical engineer. He doesn't suffer from the substance abuse common among criminal, comes from a good family and was well-off financially, with a $130,000 base salary, $40,000 annual bonuses and a net worth of $1 million.
https://www.freep.com/story/money/c...-scandal-oliver-schmidt-sentencing/924278001/
