Local News in Brief : Huntington Beach : False Smog Certificates Bring Year Prison Term
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The head of an auto emissions test laboratory has been sentenced to one year in prison for falsely certifying that luxury imported cars complied with federal smog standards.
Vernon R. Lindholm, 38, was also fined $40,000 and barred from involvement with emissions inspections for six years. The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Robert J. Kelleher in Los Angeles.
Between 1984 and 1986, Lindholm and other employees of Emission Engineering Inc. falsified test results for more than 1,000 cars and submitted them to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The cars included Mercedes-Benzes and Porsches imported outside normal channels in the so-called gray market. Gray market vehicles can be purchased abroad and then brought here for modification to EPA standards.
It was the fifth successful prosecution of a testing lab in the last three years by federal prosecutors. Four of the labs were located in Orange County.
When Lindholm was convicted last December, he was serving a six-month sentence in Orange County on convictions for insurance fraud and filing false statements on loan applications, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. James Sanders.
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