Ex-Audi Manager Charged In Volkswagen Emissions Cheating

DETROIT, MI – A former Audi manager was charged in a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Detroit Thursday for his role in the long-running conspiracy to defraud U.S. regulators and customers by implementing software specifically designed to cheat U.S. emissions tests in thousands of Audi “clean diesel” vehicle, the Justice Department said.

Giovanni Pamio, 60, an Italian citizen, was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, wire fraud, and violation of the Clean Air Act. Pamio was formerly head of Thermodynamics within Audi’s Diesel Engine Development Department in Neckarsulm, Germany. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Detroit Patch, click here to find your local Michigan Patch. Also, like us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

According to the complaint, from in or about 2006 until in or about November 2015, Pamio led a team of engineers responsible for designing emissions control systems to meet emissions standards, including for nitrogen oxides (“NOx”), for diesel vehicles in the United States.

After Pamio and his co-conspirators realized that it was impossible to calibrate a diesel engine that would meet NOx emissions standards within the design constraints imposed by other departments at the company, Pamio directed Audi employees to design and implement software functions to cheat the standard U.S. emissions tests, the complaint alleged. Pamio and his co-conspirators deliberately failed to disclose the software functions, and they knowingly misrepresented that the vehicles complied with U.S. NOx emissions standards, according to the complaint.

Audi’s parent company, Volkswagen AG (VW), previously pleaded guilty to three felony counts connected to cheating U.S. emissions standards. The company was ordered to pay a $2.8 billion criminal fine at its sentencing on April 21, 2017.

Read the complaint below: