The manager of a Ridgefield auto shop has been ordered to pay $10,000 and serve 240 hours of community service after illegally modifying hundreds of diesel trucks to bypass emissions controls.
On Sept. 21, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced the fine and sentence for Nicholas Akerill in Clark County District Court. Akerill worked for RPM Northwest in Ridgefield, and alongside business owners Sean and Tracy Coiteux, was federally indicted for conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act in May 2021, according to an affidavit of probable cause.
During the investigation, the Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division determined the auto shop “provided services that illegally modified diesel vehicles’ emissions control systems,” the affidavit stated.
Washington’s Clean Air Act “prohibits a person from removing or rendering inoperable any component or change any element of design of a motor vehicle … that could affect the amount of air contaminants emitted from that vehicle.”
Invoices seized during the investigation showed between about Jan. 1, 2018 and Jan. 20, 2021, the auto shop modified the emission control system of about 375 diesel trucks, collecting more than $536,000 in fees for the service, the affidavit stated.
The affidavit stated Akerill and the owners agreed to perform the modifications, which ranged from $1,000 to $2,000, to remove emissions control hardware from a truck and tune the vehicle’s programming to not recognize the missing equipment.
As manager, Akerill directed RPM Northwest employees to perform the removals, called “deletes,” the affidavit stated. A former mechanic at the business told investigators Akerill did all the “tunes” of diesel vehicles using his cellphone to reprogram the vehicle’s on-board diagnostics system.
To hide the illegal modifications, the business referred to the work on invoices as an “upgrade” sometimes accompanied by a “D” or “T” to indicate a “delete” or “tune” respectively, the affidavit stated. Akerill and the business owners did not discuss the work with customers on the telephone, nor did they advertise the services. They discouraged discussion of the services on social media to conceal the activity.
Akerill directed the deletes and completed the tunes “at the direction of, and with the full knowledge and agreement of the owners,” the affidavit stated.
A search of vehicles indicated to have the illegal modifications by an EPA inspector confirmed the trucks received the work, according to the affidavit.
Ferguson said on Twitter that his environmental crimes team had secured three guilty pleas for removing emissions controls on diesel trucks, including Akerill’s.
