. . . Former Volkswagen executive Oliver Schmidt is expected to plead guilty to charges surrounding the diesel-cheating scandal at a U.S. district court in Michigan, according to The Detroit News. Schmidt was Volkswagen's top emissions compliance manager for the automaker from 2012 to 2015 and is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, violating the Clean Air Act, and aiding and abetting wire fraud. The former executive will reportedly plead guilty to at least some of the charges at his hearing at 9:30 a.m. this morning, though it's unclear which.
Schmidt, a German national, was denied a pretrial bond release and had been ordered to stay at home in Rochester, Michigan, wear a GPS tracker, and surrender his passport after his arrest and months of jail time.
He was arrested in January 2017 after attempting to return to Germany after a vacation in Florida. . . .
Since his arrest, five other Volkswagen executives have been indicted: Heinz-Jakob Neusser, Jens Hadler, Richard Dorenkamp, Bernd Gottweis, and Jürgen Pete. They are not expected to face trial in the U.S., since Germany does not customarily extradite its citizens. They will, however, effectively be prevented from traveling to the U.S. on business, as they would face arrest once they were in the country. . . .