Rupert Stadler, the former CEO of the German car manufacturer Audi, was sentenced to 21 months in prison on Tuesday in the fraud trial surrounding ‘dieselgate’, which is about installing cheating software in diesel cars.
The former boss of Audi decided to plead guilty after more than two years of trial in Munich. He was accused of knowing the installation of pirated software without intervening to put an end to it.
Stadler, who headed VW subsidiary Audi for 11 years (between 2007 and 2018), was the first auto industry executive remanded in custody in June 2018 in the scandal. He was rereleased in October 2018.
The car group also cut all ties with him in the same month. Stadler has already paid the Volkswagen group a compensation of 4.1 million euros for the diesel gate scandal.
