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.
“For too many years, companies like Rudy’s have installed illegal defeat devices to evade the public health protections of the Clean Air Act, to the detriment of communities across America,” said Assistant Administrator David M. Uhlmann of EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “Today’s announcement demonstrates that EPA will vigorously pursue criminal and civil penalties until this blatant illegal behavior comes to an end.”
No doubt, $10 million is huge. It’s the largest fine and penalty total of any case I’ve covered relating to independent diesel shops. But according to the DOJ and EPA’s findings, Rudy’s generated tens of millions in revenue from selling software tuning devices alone. There’s mega-money involved at every level of this situation.
Court documents say Rudy’s highest-selling product was the Mini-Maxx tuner, a part manufactured by another entity referred to as “Company A.” Rudy’s sold XRT Pro tuners as well, which were also made by Company A. It’s worth noting that H&S Performance, another aftermarket manufacturer that was forced to pay for violating the CAA, built products by the same name. The DOJ’s press release says that after Company A discontinued the Mini-Maxx and XRT Pro, Rudy’s conspired with others to make imitation tuners that were falsely branded. This was initially performed through an agreement with a software technician who agreed to collaborate with Rudy’s, and that arrangement lasted from July 2015 through December 2016.
Rudy’s then started faking these tuners in-house. This involved an $850,000 laptop purchase, as the computer contained the software to convert other tuners into Mini-Maxxes and XRT Pros. Until stopping in July 2018, Rudy’s sold nearly 44,000 imitation tuners and generated about $33 million in revenue from them. All this is as reported by the DOJ.
Going forward, the consent decree requires Rudy’s and Rudolf to stop providing technical support for the defeat devices, deny all warranty claims, and instruct authorized dealers to do the same, among other things. There can be no sale or transfer of intellectual property related to the defeat devices, and all marketing materials must strike any info about emissions control tampering. All remaining aftermarket defeat devices, if any, in Rudy’s and Rudolf’s possession must be forfeited.
This shows that as long as the EPA and DOJ have the sitting administration’s blessing, they’ll continue to fine and penalize Clean Air Act violators to the fullest extent.
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