In the fraud trial over the emissions scandal at Audi, former company boss Rupert Stadler is ready to confess. Stadler and his defence lawyers said on Wednesday before the Munich Regional Court that Stadler agreed with the court's deal proposal. Accordingly, he will receive a suspended sentence if he makes a confession and is willing to pay a fine of 1.1 million euros. The prosecutor's office also approved the deal. Stadler had always rejected the allegations of fraud in the scandal over manipulated exhaust gas values. Stadler's defence lawyers Thilo Pfordte and Ulrike Thole-Groll announced a statement in two weeks. The verdict is not expected before Pentecost, said the presiding judge Stefan Weickert.
Stadler had maintained his innocence for years and had not moved away from it in the trial, which has been going on for two and a half years. But according to the preliminary assessment of the Economic Criminal Chamber, he should have recognized by July 2016 at the latest that the exhaust gas values could have been manipulated. Instead of getting to the bottom of the matter and informing the trading partners, he let the sale of the cars continue until the beginning of 2018. Therefore, a prison sentence for fraud by omission is considered for him – with a comprehensive confession and payment of 1.1 million euros, also on probation.
After the agreement, the court wants to sentence Stadler to a prison sentence of between one and a half and two years. The probation period would then be three years, Weickert announced. The probation condition is to be paid to charitable institutions.
Rupert Stadler became head of the Ingolstadt-based VW subsidiary in 2007, succeeding Martin Winterkorn, who was then at the helm of the group. From June 2018, Stadler was held in custody in Augsburg for four months due to the risk of blackout, until his resignation as Audi boss and VW board member. He had already reached a civil settlement with the Volkswagen Group and paid 4.1 million euros to his former employer for breach of duty.
Wolfgang Hatz also confessed
Last week, after more than 160 days of trials, Wolfgang Hatz had already made a comprehensive confession in Stadelheim; the man who was Head of Powertrain Development in Ingolstadt until September 2009 before moving on to Porsche as Chief Development Officer. He had already known before 2015 that the exhaust gas aftertreatment in numerous diesel cars, for which he was partly responsible, could have been illegal, Hatz said through his defense lawyer Gerson Trüg. "I was familiar with the defining elements of the software."
The fact that they contained an inadmissible defeat device for vehicles for the North American market "I have recognized and accepted". His actions between 2007 and 2009 then became the "working basis" for the later generations of engines, according to Hatz's confession. The former top manager was in custody for months during the investigation.
His former colleague Giovanni P., once a senior Audi engineer, also repeated his earlier confession last week. According to the court's clarification, both can expect prison sentences of between one and a half and two years – an extremely mild sentence in view of the initial accusation of tens of thousands of affected diesel vehicles and billions in damage.