Feds Nail Another Diesel Shop With $10M in Fines for Deleting Emissions Equipment
The United States federal government has made it clear: Violate the Clean Air Act and you’ll be in big trouble. Diesel truck tuners have learned this the hard way over the last three years by paying huge criminal fines and civil penalties, regularly in the seven-figure range. As it turns out, the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice are willing to go even bigger as they’ve nailed a North Carolina aftermarket shop for $10 million.
The DOJ published a press release earlier this week that named Rudy’s Performance Parts and its owner Aaron Rudolf for making, selling, and installing emissions defeat devices. Rudy’s pleaded guilty and was sentenced on Tuesday, Sept. 10, to pay $2.4 million in criminal fines for conspiring to violate the CAA. This follows a previous sentencing and fine from April in which Rudolf was ordered to pay $600,000 and enter a three-year organizational probation period.
By far the largest monetary penalty comes from a civil suit that the feds filed against Rudy’s and Rudolf. The DOJ did this on behalf of the EPA for the defendants’ hand in getting defeat devices to customers while “failing to adequately respond to the EPA’s formal requests for information.” A $7 million consent decree, filed July 29, was the result.
