A North Carolina auto seller has been charged $10M for manufacturing emissions-breaching parts. Rudy’s Performance Parts Inc. (Rudy’s) and its owner, Aaron Rudolf, are at the core of the criminal and civil charges, which revolve around the selling, manufacturing, and installing parts used to remove or disable required emissions controls in motor vehicles.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Criminal Investigation Division investigated the criminal case. Senior Counsel Elizabeth L. Loeb of ENRD’s Environmental Enforcement Section, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Cassie Crawford and Rebecca Mayer for the Middle District of North Carolina and Attorney-Adviser Lauren Tozzi of EPA’s Air Enforcement Division are handling the civil case.
U.S. Attorney Sandra J. Hairston for the Middle District of North Carolina said, “Tampering with emissions controls adds excess pollutants to the air we breathe and harms both public health and the environment. Settlements like these are essential to hold entities who violate the Clean Air Act accountable and to prevent harmful air pollution.”
Rudy’s Performance Parts Inc involved in $10m emissions case
The North Carolina auto part company pleaded guilty and was sentenced in federal court in Washington, D.C., for conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act.
According to the Justice Department, U.S. District Court Judge Trevor N. McFadden for the District of Columbia directed a criminal fine of $2.4 million and must complete a three-year period of organizational probation, consistent with a plea agreement.
“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.
Rudolf, sole owner and chief executive officer of Rudy’s, has reportedly pleaded guilty to conspiring “to violate the Clean Air Act by tampering with monitoring devices on approximately 300 diesel trucks, which involved the installation of defeat devices on those trucks. He was sentenced in April to three years of probation and ordered to pay a $600,000 criminal fine.”
According to the EPA, the car part company was involved in a civil suit in 2022, again breaching the Clean Air Act by “manufacturing, selling and installing defeat devices and failing to adequately respond to the EPA’s formal requests for information.” Rudy’s and Rudolf will pay a $7 million civil penalty for those previous violations.
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