(The Center Square) – Rudy’s, a North Carolina manufacturer and seller of automotive parts, has been fined $10 million in criminal and civil penalties for its role in what the industry calls defeat devices.
Violation of the Clean Air Act was cited by U.S. District Court Judge Trevor N. McFadden for the District of Columbia. Prosecutors say Aaron Rudolf, owner and operator of Rudy’s Performance Parts Inc. in Burlington, made, sold and installed devices “used to remove or disable required emissions controls in motor vehicles,” the U.S. Department of Justice says.
Rudolf pleaded guilty and accepted a criminal fine of $2.4 million; in April, he was ordered to pay a $600,000 criminal fine. He’s admitted to conspiracy to violate the law through tampering with approximately 300 diesel trucks, a release says.
A civil suit filed in 2022 says he manufactured, sold and installed the devices and did not “adequately respond to the EPA’s formal requests for information,” the DOJ said of the Environmental Protection Agency efforts.