Gorilla Performance, or GDP Tuning LLC to use its legal name, and its owner Barry Pierce pleaded guilty to criminal charges over the sale and distribution of devices designed to defeat emissions controls in diesel vehicles. Together, they will pay a total of $1 million in fines, and Pierce could be looking at two years in jail.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the plea and the fine today, which followed a probe led by its Criminal Investigation Division. It charged Pierce and Gorilla Performance with conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act.
According to the EPA, Gorilla Tuning sold tens of thousands of tuning devices, as well as the accompanying software to tamper with a diesel vehicle’s on-board diagnostic systems. In addition, it operated a retail shop in Rexburg, Idaho, where emissions control deletes were conducted.
Read: Californian Tuner Fined $1M For Selling Diesel Emissions Cheat Devices For Pickups
“Tampering with vehicles’ on-board diagnostic devices isn’t just a violation of federal law – it’s a major health hazard,” said Todd Kim, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “People are harmed as a direct consequence of the many air pollutants that would be removed by emissions controls systems absent the illegal tampering.”
The EPA reports that in trucks with deleted emissions controls, rates of harmful particulates like NOx increase by 310 times, carbon monoxide by 120 times, and non-methane hydrocarbons increase by 1,400 times over fully compliant vehicles.
It estimates that around 15 percent of diesel trucks on U.S. roads have had their emissions control devices illegally deleted. That’s a particular concern, because beyond the planetary impacts, diesel exhaust has been found to worsen respiratory ailments like asthma and lung cancer and one study has found that 21,000 American deaths per year can be attributed to diesel particulate matter.
“Nearly a decade after EPA began cracking down on illegal defeat devices that violate the Clean Air Act, there is no excuse for companies to be continuing to cheat on vehicle emissions,” said David M. Uhlmann, assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “EPA will continue to pursue criminal charges against companies like Gorilla Performance, which broke the law brazenly and repeatedly, until this egregious criminal activity comes to a stop once and for all.”
Sentencing for Pierce is expected to take place on November 8, before U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill for the District of Idaho.
