Earlier this week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice announced a Clean Air Act settlement agreement with Rudy’s Performance Parts Inc., a North Carolina automotive parts manufacturer and seller, and its owner, Aaron Rudolf, to pay a total of $10 million in criminal fines and civil penalties for manufacturing, selling and installing devices, commonly known as “defeat devices,” used to remove or disable truck emissions controls.
Rudy’s pleaded guilty and was sentenced in federal court for conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act. U.S. District Court Judge Trevor N. McFadden for the District of Columbia ordered Rudy’s to pay a criminal fine of $2.4 million and to complete a three-year period of organizational probation. In April, Aaron Rudolf, sole owner and chief executive officer of Rudy’s, pleaded guilty for conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act by tampering with monitoring devices on about 300 diesel trucks, which involved the installation of defeat devices on those trucks. He was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay a $600,000 criminal fine.
Separate from the criminal actions, EPA and the Justice Department filed a civil complaint in 2022 against Rudy’s and Rudolf for violating the Clean Air Act by manufacturing, selling and installing defeat devices and failing to adequately respond to the EPA’s formal requests for information. Under a consent decree filed July 29, Rudy’s and Rudolf will pay a $7 million civil penalty for those violations. The consent decree would also prohibit them from making, selling, offering to sell and installing defeat devices, transferring intellectual property that would allow others to make or sell defeat devices, and investing in or profiting from defeat devices manufactured or sold by other businesses. The decree is subject to court approval.
“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 David M. Uhlmann, EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “Today’s announcement demonstrates that EPA will vigorously pursue criminal and civil penalties until this illegal behavior comes to an end.”
According to court documents in the criminal case, Rudy’s sold defeat devices, known as delete tuners, which tampered with the on-board diagnostic systems (OBDs) of vehicles. Rudy’s top selling product was the Mini Maxx delete tuner originally manufactured by another company, identified in court documents as “Company A.” Rudy’s also sold the XRT Pro, another Company A delete tuner. After Company A stopped making these tuners, Rudy’s conspired with others to manufacture imitation Company A tuners. Rudy’s reached an agreement with a software technician to convert certain tuners into imitation Company A tuners. That agreement ran from July 2015 through December 2016, when the software technician stopped converting tuners.
After that, Rudy’s manufactured the imitation delete tuners in-house using a laptop computer that Rudy’s purchased for $850,000. The laptop contained software to convert tuners into imitation Company A tuners. In-house manufacturing lasted from about December 2016 through July 2018. In total, Rudy’s sold about 43,900 imitation tuners, generating about $33 million in revenue.
The civil lawsuit alleges that from at least 2014 through mid-2019, Rudy’s and Rudolf manufactured and sold over 250,000 products designed to remove or disable EPA-mandated emissions controls. These products included hardware parts such as plates that block a vehicle’s exhaust gas recirculation system and pipes that replace pollution treatment components in a vehicle’s exhaust system.
Disabling or removing emissions controls and tampering with the OBD of a diesel truck causes its emissions to increase significantly.
The $7 million that Rudy’s and Rudolf will pay pursuant to the consent decree was based on their financial capability.
The consent decree was lodged in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.
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