Rudy's Performance Parts Inc., a North Carolina automotive parts maker and seller, and its owner Aaron Rudolf have agreed to pay a total of $10 million in criminal fines and civil penalties for making, selling and installing devices, commonly known as "defeat devices," used to remove or disable required emissions controls in motor vehicles.
Rudy's pleaded guilty and was sentenced Friday in federal court in Washington, D.C., for conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said. Rudy’s was ordered to pay a criminal fine of $2.4 million and complete a three-year period of organizational probation, consistent with a plea agreement.
According to the DOJ, Rudolf 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 to three years of probation and ordered to pay a $600,000 criminal fine.”
According to court documents, Rudy's sold another company’s Mini Maxx and XRT Pro defeat devices, known as delete tuners, which tampered with vehicles’ on-board diagnostic systems.
Rudy’s began making imitation Mini Maxx and XRT Pro devices when the original manufacturer stopped making them through an agreement with a software technician that ran from July 2015 through December 2016 and then with a laptop bought for $850,000 from December 2016 through July 2018.
In total, Rudy's sold approximately 43,900 imitation tuners, generating about $33 million in revenue.
On behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency, the DOJ filed a civil suit in 2022 against Rudy's and Rudolf for making, selling and installing over 250,000 defeat devices from 2014 to mid-2019 and failing to respond to the EPA's requests for information.
Under a consent decree filed July 29, Rudy's and Rudolf will pay a $7 million civil penalty for those violations.
Israeli Pleads Guilty To Smuggling U.S. Aircraft Parts To Russia
Gal Haimovich, 49, of Israel, pleaded guilty on Monday to conspiracy to commit export control and smuggling violations for his role in a scheme to illegally ship aircraft parts and avionics from U.S. manufacturers and suppliers to Russia for the benefit of sanctioned Russian airline companies.
As part of a plea agreement, Haimovich admitted his scheme deceived U.S. companies about the aircraft parts’ true destination, and that the defendant and others tried to hide the scheme by giving false information in export documents filed with the U.S. government. A sentencing hearing has been set for Nov. 22.
According to court documents, Haimovich owned an international freight forwarding company that was an affiliate in a group of companies that did business in various countries, including the U.S. and Israel.
Through these companies, Haimovich operated as a freight forwarder of choice for individuals and entities seeking to illegally export goods to Russia in violation of U.S. export control laws.
Between March 2022 and May 2023, Haimovich facilitated exporting aircraft parts and avionics, including those with missile technology applications, from southern Florida to third-party transhippers on behalf of Russian customers.
Ohio Man Sentenced To Prison For Not Reporting Gambling Business Earnings to Internal Revenue Service
An Ohio man was sentenced to 20 months in prison on Thursday for conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service by not reporting income he earned from owning and running illegal gambling businesses.
According to court documents, Jason Kachner, of Canton, Christos Karasarides Jr. and other co-conspirators owned and operated two illegal gambling businesses, Skilled Shamrock and Redemption, from 2010 through 2018.
From 2012 through 2017, patrons at Skilled Shamrock bet a total of more than $34 million, which resulted in more than $4 million in income for the owners of the gambling business. Kachner conspired with his co-owners to defraud the IRS by using a nominee owner to hide their ownership of the businesses and by filing false tax returns that omitted most of the income he received from the businesses.
Kachner, who caused $844,692 in losses to the IRS, was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay $1,393,024 in restitution to the U.S.
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