Business Owner Pollutes Environment for Personal Gain
Isaac Allen of Maine pleaded guilty on Nov. 20 to installing illegal software to circumvent mandatory emissions control systems.
Isaac Allen, 34, from Windham, Maine, pleaded guilty on Nov. 20 to crimes involving the disruption of Clear Air Act agency proceedings and tampering with devices, according to a DOJ press release. Allen owned Red Barn Diesel Performance and conspired with a truck sales company to bypass the trucks’ emissions systems.
Allen pleaded guilty to both counts against him and faces up to five years in prison and a maximum of $250,000, or twice the funds gained by the offense, according to the press release.
Circumventing Emissions Control Systems
Similar to another story covered by The Daily Muck, in which Aaron Rudolf, 37, from North Carolina, provided and installed “defeat devices” used to disable or remove emission controls from trucks, Allen reprogrammed on-board diagnostic (OBD) systems, according to the press release.
These acts directly violate the Clean Air Act, which regulates the engines of motor vehicles and imposes regulations to limit emissions of air pollutants, as detailed in Allen’s charge documents. These emissions regulations apply to large, heavy-duty diesel engines, so manufacturers install emissions control devices or OBD systems to manage engine exhaust. Managing the engine exhaust reduces pollutants like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, non-methane hydrocarbons and particulate matter.
OBD systems consist of software and sensors that send a dash light indicator when the system isn’t working correctly. The system also stores the error code in its memory, as explained in the charge documents. If the problem goes unresolved, the OBD system could cause some vehicles to go into “limp” mode by limiting the top speed of those vehicles to as low as five miles an hour.
Defeat devices, like the ones Rudolf manufactured and Allen provided his customers, are called “tuners,” according to the charge documents. Allen teamed up with a Louisiana-based corporation, mainly operating in Lake Charles, La., that made tuning software to defeat the OBD systems.
Allen’s Software Stopped Vehicles from Entering “Limp” Mode
Allen downloaded the company’s “tunes” software from the internet, which was used to disable the OBD system’s monitoring function, prohibiting it from sending a warning light on the vehicle’s dash and storing the error code in its memory, according to the charge documents. This also prevented the vehicle from entering “limp” mode and allowed the trucks to operate with more horsepower and foot-pounds of torque without the cost of maintaining the emissions control systems.
Between January 2017 and September 2020, Allen got the “tunes” software online, according to the charge documents. He then installed them into commercial trucks like GMC and Cummins, which were sent to him at his business, Red Barn, from a truck sales company he had conspired with.
Submitted False Documents to the EPA
During this time, Allen submitted false documents to the EPA in June 2020 in response to the agency’s request for information about how many vehicles he had installed the tuning software on, according to the charge documents.
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