70-Year-Old Former Volkswagen CEO Charged With Fraud Over Emissions Scandal (cnn.com) 84
An anonymous reader quotes CNN:
The U.S.government has charged Martin Winterkorn, the former chief executive officer of Volkswagen, with fraud in the company's diesel emissions-cheating scandal. The indictment was unsealed in Detroit on Thursday, revealing that Winterkorn had been charged on March 14 with wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud Volkswagen's American customers and violate the Clean Air Act...
Volkswagen admitted in late 2015 that it fitted as many as 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide with software that could cheat emissions tests... The indictment alleges that Winterkorn was made aware of emissions cheating in May 2014 and July 2015, and that he agreed with other senior executives to continue the practice... Winterkorn, 70, is believed to be a resident of Germany. He is the ninth person charged by the U.S. government over emissions cheating.
Volkswagen admitted in late 2015 that it fitted as many as 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide with software that could cheat emissions tests... The indictment alleges that Winterkorn was made aware of emissions cheating in May 2014 and July 2015, and that he agreed with other senior executives to continue the practice... Winterkorn, 70, is believed to be a resident of Germany. He is the ninth person charged by the U.S. government over emissions cheating.
in Germany he can do time at very easy one! (Score:2)
in Germany he can do time at very easy one!
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I imagine he'd spend time in a relatively nice federal facility in the US.
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American prisons are not federal, they are privat owned, hence the absurd amount of inmates. ...
There are even judges that own prisons
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It depends.
Some prisons are privately owned.
Others are owned by states and may or may not be privately run by contractors.
Others are Federal, same applies as above.
Finally, there are county and city jails, generally for prisoners before trial ("on remand") or serving short sentences.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
A low security facility is probably the most likely choice if convicted.
Re: in Germany he can do time at very easy one! (Score:2)
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90% of prisoners are in state prisons and 10% are in federal prisons.
7% of state prisons are privately run. 18% of federal prisons are privately run.
Rising state prison populations have little to do with privatization.
Maine imprisons the smallest percentage of its population.
Louisiana imprisons the most.
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Oh, so it's black people then?
No. Washington DC is 50% black, much higher than any state, yet it has a low incarceration rate. Arizona is 3% black, and has a very high incarceration rate.
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Try to get some facts once in a while.
Statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice show that, as of 2013, there were 133,000 state and federal prisoners housed in privately owned prisons in the U.S., constituting 8.4% of the overall U.S. prison population.
And... (Score:2)
He's 70 (Score:2)
Re:He's 70 (Score:5, Informative)
they'll tie it up in court until he dies.
No need. Germany doesn't extradite its citizens.
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That is not how a court works in the EU.
The judge or court does not know what Europe loves and what not, he applies the law, thats all.
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No, it is not naive.
It is idiotic to think they are.
Re: He's 70 (Score:1)
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No it is not common sense.
In Europe courts are completely independent.
They don't follow public opinions, why should they?
If the public opinion should change when the next promotion is due, the judge would probably not get promoted. So why would he risk to base a judgement on public opinion instead of law?
You probably come from a country with 3rd world like law system ... so you don't grasp that concept.
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I'm not certain about this, but I believe a criminal court case in Europe can only be brought against a person by a European government. Given Germany's reluctance to do much if anything about the emissions scandal I think we have no chance in hell of that happening.
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In germany we have laws, not a jury. ... probably he had no knowledge about anything. Secondly: the cars are required to have certain properties under test conditions, those they had. While the company was morally wrong, they were legally right. I guess the laws are about to be fixed to explicitly disallow that kind of cheating.
While a Jury would likely convict him, he has done nothing wrong regarding the law. First of all he is only the CEO
Of course we extradite criminals if there is a treaty with the othe
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Perhaps you wanted to write that a bit different, not sure. The "government" is not involved at all
In Commonwealth countries if someone punches you, you go to the police, the police then arrest the person but to trialled as a criminal it is a government appointed *Crown* prosecutor, who brings the case to the court. That's what I meant. Judges still decide the case as normal, but the prosecutor in a criminal case is in the employ of the government.
You have reminded me though, it works differently in Germany where the courts are involved far earlier in the process (I learnt that by watching Der Bulle von
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Well, :D
judges and state prosecutor are employed by the state, not the government, that might be technically a bit different in the UK if one is appointed by the crown, but then again the crown is not the government either
So if he hasn't broken a law in the eyes of the Germans its unlikely this will ever get even to a court.
Yes, and I personally look down on him for this case, as it is morally wrong and mislead many customers, who gt compensation now, he technically did not break any law. And in the US he d
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Re: He's 70 (Score:2)
completely false (Score:4, Informative)
What it does not allow like many other EU country, is to extradite if there is a death penalty. Either the target country has to give up the death +penalty, or never apply it. I think winterkorn is safe from death penalty , so if the offense is valid under german law (and fraud is) extradition is not off the table.
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Germany do extradite its citizen and there are treaty for it, supplemented by EU wide treaty
Not at all. The treaty with the USA does not overwrite the German constitution. The only people who can be extradited to any non-EU country are non-citizens, or citizens exclusively for the trial at an international court.
27 people have been extradited from Germany. 15 were non-citizens, and 12 were Nazi war criminals, some of which ended up in EU countries.
I think winterkorn is safe from death penalty
Winterkorn is safe because he is a German citizen protected by Article 16 paragraph 2 of the German Constitution.
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He would probably argue that US prison would violate his human rights, especially at his age. That's enough to stop extradition.
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He would probably argue that US prison would violate his human rights, especially at his age. That's enough to stop extradition.
He wouldn't need to because the GP was incorrect. Germany has never extradited a citizen to a non-EU country and / or for anything other than to be tried at an international court for war crimes.
The treaty with the USA does not trump the German constitution.
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Of course we do, if there is a solid case.
What else could/would we do?
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Of course we do, if there is a solid case.
27 people have historically been extradited from Germany. Of those 15 were not German citizens and 12 were tried as war criminals and extradited by the Allies for their involvement in the international law.
You're German (I think) so I'm just going to link to you your own constitution [gesetze-im-internet.de] without a translation. As a citizen you are only allowed to be sent to another EU state or to an international court.
Make no mistake, Martin Winterkorn will NOT be extradited to Germany, not for his current crimes in the USA, a
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Ah,
I was not aware that german citizens can only be extradited to EU members.
For some strange reason we nevertheless have a contract with the USA, probably that covers only non Germans then. I wonder how that works out if a German is jailed e.g. in Spain and an US court would approach a spanish court.
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That last part is a very good question. I also wonder if the German government would get some kind of guarantee that anyone extradited from Germany to an EU country would not be sent on to the USA.
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I guess at least the "no death penalty" would be honoured, but the extradited point, I have no clue.
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Funny that there's a treaty between the US and Germany for that specific purpose
http://www.mcnabbassociates.co... [mcnabbassociates.com]
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Indeed but the treaty is just an extradition treaty and does not define *who* gets extradited. Specifically Germany is only allowed to extradite a non-citizen under the Article 16 of the German constitution. https://www.gesetze-im-interne... [gesetze-im-internet.de] exception being extradition for final destination in an EU country, and extradition to appear in front of an international court.
The only German citizens who have ever been extradited have been war criminals and most of them didn't leave the EU.
And the bankers (Score:2, Interesting)
And the American bankers who caused the '08 meltdown got bonuses for breaking the law.
Re:And the bankers (Score:5, Insightful)
Truth and justice is the American way as long as you're not part of the power structure. And even then, someone has their finger on the scales.
Re:And the bankers (Score:5, Insightful)
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They could have been where Tesla is now if they had put all the latest r&d money into EVs. They are only now finally making decent ones.
Could even have put money into hybrid technology like Toyota did.
But instead they decided to cheat.
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For those who are too lazy to read for themselves: He's under investigation in Germany as well. His entire financial existence is on the line according to the article.
The US generally doesn't extradite... (Score:2)
Re:In Europe (Score:4, Funny)
I must say your sober, polite and factual text have made me realize what I fool I have been all my life. I'll now convert and spend my remaining time in a monastery contemplating over these truths.
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Well... it's different than what the common rhetoric.
If I used the Russians, or the Chinese... maybe throw some N. Koreans here and there, I'd be more popular and persuasive.
This doesn't change the fact that nobody bats an eye about VW's corruption in the E.U. because they are germans.
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Germany has been the no.1 factor of corruption in E.U. with Siemens, Daimler, Deutsche Telekom, Fraport, Bayer and Deutsche Bank.
(there's a longer list, but I don't bother listing it here)
Nobody dares to touch VW in E.U., that's the problem, and Germany won't do anything about it because it's their company.
meanwhile in Appalachia (Score:4, Insightful)
coal companies are blowing the top off of mountains and detroying streams and creeks and they are not in violation of the clean water act.
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coal companies are blowing the top off of mountains and detroying streams and creeks and they are not in violation of the clean water act.
No they are not and the reason is *you*. *You* (as in a person in America) have a need that needs to be met in the form of energy. The government tried* to meet this need balancing the requirements of *you* and the environment. Sure they could tomorrow tell the coal companies and the frackers to stop, but just what will *you* do when the power goes out and the petrol stations run dry?
What they can do is implement long term measures to slowly change the standards by which primary energy is extracted without
The Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
Although many of the victims of that crime were American citizens who lost jobs and homes because of the bankers' greed, they were not the only ones. Investors and savers and pensioners the world over have been absolutely devastated because of that one event, with literally tens of thousands of people across the world working into their 70s and 80s - literally until they drop dead - because of that massive amount of financial mis-management.
I appreciate that the 2008 financial crimes and the subsequent emissions scandal are two very different crimes, but how come not one US banker is serving time for what happened in 2008? How come the United States hasn't given up any of the culprits to those nations whose citizens have been robbed?
The American people have every right to be angry with the emissions scandal. What was done was wrong. I am not trying to argue otherwise. However, I am pointing out that when crimes span countries, justice is far from even-handed.
I would absolutely stand with the environmental campaigners of the United States and demand justice for the way that VAG conspired to cheat emissions testing for their vehicles. However, that would be conditional upon fair and even-handed exercise of justice. We simply can't go around selectively choosing how to serve justice.
For example, it also wasn't fair for the United States to bring a misdemeanour charge and $100,000 in fines against former General David Patreus and then convict Chelsea Manning of 19 charges including theft and espionage and then sentence her to 35 years in prison. In order for justice to work, it not only has to be fair, it has to be seen to be fair.
I'm not for one moment suggesting that the United States should not seek compensation from Volkswagen, but if they are going to ask for it, then they need to offer up an equal amount of justice for all those outside the United States who have been wronged or injured by the actions of US citizens. Anything less is hypocrisy - and it serves to undermine any good that the United States tries to do in the world.
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Rich people buy better lawyers. Rich people also buy laws that dump their sins onto peons.
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Don't forget about the "Good ol' boys club" that Patreus was a member of. Once you reach a certain rank, you are damned near untouchable and - at worst - will get a demotion if you get caught. Simply wasn't high-ranking enough to get that immunity.
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Whataboutism.
politics, not justice (Score:2)
Announcing this in Detroit is just a nonsensical political statement that derides any pretence this is about the public good.