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This is how you might bring up a murderer – but usually not someone who was involved in a fraud. But the defendant Oliver Schmidt, formerly head of VW’s environmental bureau in the USA and a detainee in Milan, Michigan prison since January 2017, is shown to courtroom 236 in the US federal court in Detroit in dark red convict clothing.
Not only that: Schmidt has to wear chains. Chains around his feet that force him to triple steps. Chains wrapped around his waist. His hands were handcuffed and kept in hand during the whole process. A lawyer has to bring a mug to his mouth when Schmidt wants to drink.
Seven years imprisonment and a $ 400,000 fine
Just from this chilling scene one could have read what the verdict would have been: As hard as possible. Judge Sean Cox beats the defendant for 84 months – seven years in prison and a fine of $ 400,000. Both together the highest sentence that was still possible in these proceedings after Schmidt had made a late confession.
Schmidt’s defense attorney DuMouchel from New York had asserted that Schmidt only appeared in the final phase of this Dieselgate scandal. As a firefighter, so to speak, to avert the worst of the VW group in the USA. Under no circumstances was he one of the masterminds behind this organized fraud, which manipulated the emission values of 500,000 vehicles from the Wolfsburg car factory with sophisticated deception software. Defense attorney DuMouchel says: Schmidt only followed the directives of the VW board when he first led the American environmental authorities and then the US investigators by the nose.
Judge Cox did not do that for him, says Larry Vellequette later, who followed the entire diesel scandal for the renowned auto trade journal Automotive News from the beginning: Cox is convinced that Schmidt was actively involved in the allegations against VW to create the world.
Prosecutor: Schmidt covered up, tricked, cheated
This is how the prosecution sees it: Schmidt played a key role in the conspiracy to defraud the American economy and the US consumer. He hushed up, tricked, cheated – and acted in consultation and with the cover of the executive floor in Wolfsburg. Finally, Schmidt also made sure that documents were destroyed.
Schmidt was the middleman between the VW board and the US authorities, says the prosecutor and repeatedly mentions the name of Martin Winterkorn, the former CEO of the VW group:
“The prosecution has mentioned the name Winterkorn several times because they believe that he was involved in this conspiracy – although he is not charged at all.”
Judge Cox will come back to that too. Schmidt had done everything until his late admission to hinder the criminal investigation of this affair, Cox finally justified his harsh judgment. He also acted for career reasons.
Judge justifies harsh judgment with breach of trust
Cox justifies the gravity of the offense, however, with the fact that it was fundamentally aimed at the foundations of the economic system – the relationship of trust between manufacturer and consumer. Therefore, the judgment must be uncompromisingly harsh – so that the entire economy is warned for the future.
And then Sean Cox actually comes back to the backers in Wolfsburg: While Oliver Schmidt has to pay for his offenses, they would get away with it, continue to collect their bonuses and – unlike the little man and consumer – would not have any financial disadvantages fear.
With this process, the VW group has endured the Dieselgate scandal in the USA. But not Oliver Schmidt. Unless Martin Winterkorn and participating colleagues from the VW boardroom came up with the idea of going on vacation to the USA, as did Oliver Schmidt at the time.
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