A Volkswagen engineer was indicted in Detroit federal court Friday and pleaded guilty for his role in developing an emissions-cheating device installed on a half-million diesel cars sold in the United States. The 62 year-old German citizen, who lives in Newbury Park, California, appeared in US District Court in Detroit on Friday and entered into a plea agreement that includes his cooperation with the government in its investigation. James Liang, who has worked for VW since 1983 and was part of a team of engineers who developed a diesel engine, was charged in an indictment made public on Friday with conspiring to commit wire fraud and violating US clean air laws. As described in a 25-page indictment unsealed Friday along with the plea deal, Liang and the other VW employees at Volkswagen knew “from almost the beginning of VW’s process to design its new ‘clean diesel’ vehicles” that the cars “would not meet U.S. emissions standards.”

When they realized that they could not design an engine that would adhere to the strict U.S. standards, while also delivering solid road performance, they created and implemented so-called defeat devices — software that could recognize when cars were being tested “in order to cheat” the tests, according to court papers. Liang could face up to five years in prison but could get a much lighter sentence if the government finds he provided substantial assistance. The cooperation of Liang, who began work in Wolfsburg, Germany, and also worked in the U.S., is a major breakthrough in the Justice Department's investigation into the automaker's cheating scandal. In a statement released Friday, the Justice Department said Liang admitted to using the software while working on the diesel engine and “assisted in making the defeat device work.”

Volkswagen said in a statement that it is “continuing to cooperate with the U.S. Department of Justice,” but couldn’t comment on the indictment. While working at VW’s test facility in Oxnard, he served as “leader of diesel competence.”

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According to the plea agreement, Liang said he and his co-conspirators “misrepresented” that the VW diesel vehicles met U.S. emissions standards during certification meetings for new cars with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board and “hid the existence of the defeat device from regulators.”

According to court papers, Liang and his fellow engineers did not stop at creating the defeat devices — they improved them. The indictment says that in May 2008 Liang transferred from Volkswagen headquarters in Germany to the U.S. to help oversee the launch of the new "clean diesel" models. The indictment says Liang conspired with current and former VW employees to mislead US regulators about the software that allowed the automaker to circumvent the nation’s emission standards.
An engineer from Volkswagen pleads guilty for his role in the emissions cheating scandal.