Merry Christmas? VW fires 'dieselgate' executive in his US jail cell
The US government put a VW Exec in prison for the emission scandal, yet the FORECLOSURE KING, Steven Mnuchin who put Americans on the street gets appointed TREASURY SECRETARY?
Hold on to your wallets!
Even as the Trump cronies seek to destroy emission standards, the Clean Air Act, allow Dirty Coal......
VW fires 'dieselgate' executive in his US jail cell
Photo: DPA
22 December 2017
Volkswagen has sacked an executive who was jailed for his role in the German automaker's "dieselgate" scandal - by sending a letter of dismissal to his US prison cell.
German newspaper Bild am Sonntag said it learned from sources close to the firm that Oliver Schmidt, who was this month sentenced to seven years in jail, was summarily dismissed in a letter sent to his prison in Milan, Michigan.
"His employer is leaving him in the lurch," the daily wrote, accusing Volkswagen of turning Schmidt into a "global scapegoat" for the emissions cheating scam.
The 48-year-old, who led Volkswagen's US regulatory compliance office from 2012 to March 2015, was arrested while on holiday in Miami in January.
In August, he pleaded guilty to charges he had conspired to commit fraud and violate the US Clean Air Act.
He was also ordered to pay a $400,000 fine.
Seven other current and former VW executives have been charged by US prosecutors, while several investigations into the cheating are ongoing in Germany.
VW admitted in 2015 to equipping about 11 million cars worldwide with defeat devices, including about 600,000 vehicles in the United States.
The scam allowed the cars to dupe emissions tests while emitting up to 40 times the permissible levels of harmful nitrogen oxide during actual driving.
The scandal has so far cost the auto giant over € 25 billion in fines, settlements and remediation.
"His employer is leaving him in the lurch," the daily wrote, accusing Volkswagen of turning Schmidt into a "global scapegoat" for the emissions cheating scam.
The 48-year-old, who led Volkswagen's US regulatory compliance office from 2012 to March 2015, was arrested while on holiday in Miami in January.
In August, he pleaded guilty to charges he had conspired to commit fraud and violate the US Clean Air Act.
He was also ordered to pay a $400,000 fine.
Seven other current and former VW executives have been charged by US prosecutors, while several investigations into the cheating are ongoing in Germany.
VW admitted in 2015 to equipping about 11 million cars worldwide with defeat devices, including about 600,000 vehicles in the United States.
The scam allowed the cars to dupe emissions tests while emitting up to 40 times the permissible levels of harmful nitrogen oxide during actual driving.
The scandal has so far cost the auto giant over € 25 billion in fines, settlements and remediation.
In arguing for the seven-year sentence, prosecutors said Schmidt had participated in "one of the largest corporate fraud schemes in American history" and led efforts to cover up the company's misconduct in the summer of 2015.
But Bild said Schmidt was far from alone in knowing about the scheme, and accused Volkswagen of trying to pin the blame "on a single engineer".
"Dozens, if not hundreds of employees were aware of the emissions fraud," it wrote.
MIKE SEGAR / REUTERS
Trump Picks Foreclosure King Mnuchin for Treasury Secretary
Five years ago, foreclosed homeowners protested on the lawn of Steve Mnuchin’s Bel-Air mansion for his company’s ‘repulsive’ practices. Now he’ll be Trump’s secretary of the Treasury.
11.29.16
After an effort to purge lobbyists from his quickly arranged transition team, President-elect Donald Trump, who campaigned on a “drain the swamp” message, is set to promote another swamp-dweller to a high-ranking position in his administration.
Trump is set to announce that Steven Mnuchin will be his Treasury secretary, per a recommendation from his own transition team, the Associated Press reports.
Mnuchin served as Trump’s national finance chairman during the campaign after a long history in private investment banking and on Wall Street. Like Trump himself, Mnuchin was a donor to Hillary Clinton in prior campaigns. According to filings from the Federal Election Commission, he has contributed more than $8,000 to Clinton since 2000.
Prior to joining the team, Mnuchin worked at Goldman Sachs for 17 years and OneWest Bank, which got into hot water for a series of attempted home foreclosures after the 2008 housing bubble burst. He also founded RatPac-Dune Entertainment, a movie-production company that bankrolled Avatar, as well as other films. After OneWest was sold to CIT Group in 2015, Mnuchin went on to serve on its board and became the chairman and chief executive of the private investment firm Dune Capital Management.
During his tenure at OneWest, the bank was responsible for attempting to remove families from their homes against the families’ wills.
A New York judge erased $525,000 in mortgage debt owed by a Long Island couple to OneWest Bank in 2009 because the institution was harassing them. Suffolk County Judge Jeffrey Spinner blasted the bank’s “harsh, repugnant and repulsive” acts as they attempted to toss the family out on the street around Thanksgiving.
Spinner wrote that the bank refused to work out a deal with the couple to help make mortgage payments they owed and called the bank’s conduct “inequitable, unconscionable, vexatious, and opprobrious,” according to a report by the New York Post.
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