United States v. Rudy’ s Performance Parts, Inc., et al.

On September 10, 2024, a court sentenced Rudy’s Performance Parts, Inc. (Rudy’s), for manufacturing, selling devices, commonly known as “defeat devices,” used to remove or disable required emissions controls in motor vehicles.

Rudy’ s pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Clean Act (18 U.S.C § 371) and was ordered to pay a $2.4 million fine and complete a three-year term of probation. Rudolf, the company sole owner and chief executive officer, previously pleaded guilty for 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. Rudolf was sentenced in April 2024 to three years of probation and ordered to pay a $600,000 criminal fine.

Separate from the criminal actions, the Justice Department, on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), filed a civil suit 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.

Rudy’ s manufactured and sold aftermarket defeat devices, known as tuners, that tampered with motor vehicles’  on-board diagnostic systems (OBDs). Between 2015 and 2018, Rudy’ s sold approximately 43,900 such 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 more than 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.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation.