Officials say $750K fine sends ‘clear message’ to company charged with violating Clean Air Act

A Michigan diesel shop has been ordered to pay $750,000 in fines for its part in a scheme to disable emission-control devices on hundreds of semis over a three-year span.

On Friday, Feb. 23, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan announced sentencing for Diesel Freak LLC, as well as several individuals, for conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act. On top of the fine, the company also was ordered to “serve a term of probation.”

The owner of the business, Ryan Lalone, along with two employees, Wade Lalone and James Sisson, each were sentenced to a one-year probation. The company and the individual defendants pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act.

The sentencing wraps up a case in which 14 defendants were charged. Officials said the $750,000 fine was the “largest fine imposed over the course of the case in which the Court ordered over $1.8 million in fines.”

“This case is one of the largest of its kind ever charged in the United States, and today’s sentences send a clear message that polluters who break environmental laws will be held accountable,” U.S. Attorney Mark Totten said in a statement. “Environmental rules safeguard the water we drink, the lakes we fish and the air we breathe. It’s critical that we protect our people and our planet from harmful pollutants.”

According to officials, from approximately 2015 through November 2018, the Gaylord, Mich.-based shop “conducted remote reprogramming, or tuning, of on-board diagnostic systems, including deletions of environmental controls, allowing diesel engines for large open-road trucks to work cheaper, without environmental restrictions, causing pollution beyond that allowed by law.”

Ryan Lalone told the court that approximately 70% of his company’s business came from full emission-control deletions. 

“Exposure to diesel exhaust can lead to serious health conditions, such as asthma and respiratory illness, and contributes greatly to poor air quality – concerns the defendants in this case ignored in favor of financial profit,” Lisa Matovic, acting special agent in charge of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division, said in a statement.

In October 2023, a pair of Grand Rapids trucking companies – Accurate Truck Service LLC and Griffin Transportation Inc. – both were ordered to pay a $500,000 fine and serve a year of probation as part of the same investigation. LL