Man sentenced to 8 years in prison for stealing 61 cars in Volkswagen diesel scandal

A theft ring targeted Dieselgate repo vehicles stored at the Silverdome and sold the stolen vehicles out of state

Volkswagen’s Dieselgate scandal affected nearly 500,000 vehicles in the United States, which created a huge logistical problem because the company needed to find a place to store them. One of those places was the Pontiac Silverdome, which was once the home of the Detroit Lions.

The then-dilapidated football stadium parking lot, which could hold thousands of cars, was just a stone’s throw from the Auburn Hills campus of Volkswagen Group of America. While the Silverdome was convenient, it wasn’t exactly safe, as was evident when 47-year-old Roman Porter was recently sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing approximately 61 recalled Audi and Volkswagen vehicles.

More: Two Michigan men charged with stealing 61 ‘Dieselgate’ Volkswagen and Audi models

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, Porter and Daniel Onorati worked with others to steal dozens of cars from the Silverdome over a six-month period in 2017 and sold them after shipping them out of Michigan.

In April this year, a jury found Porter guilty of conspiracy to transport a stolen vehicle and transportation of a stolen vehicle. Following their verdict, US District Judge Dennis Page Hood sentenced Porter to 97 months in prison and ordered him to pay $683,080 (£512,730/€613,535) in restitution. When he is eventually released, he will be under supervision for the next three years.

“The sentencing of Romane Porter is a reminder that those who conspire to commit fraud and theft will face the maximum penalties provided by the law,” said Cheyvoryea Gibson, special agent with the Michigan Federal Bureau of Investigation. He went on to thank the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office Auto Theft Unit for helping to thwart “this bad actor’s elaborate theft scheme.”

Ironically, Porter received a harsher punishment than the former general manager of Volkswagen’s U.S. Office of Environment and Engineering. In 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Oliver Schmidt had been sentenced to 84 months in prison and a criminal fine of $400,000 (£300,252/€359,308) for his role in the Dieselgate scandal.

H/T to CBS News Detroit