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Barry Pierce, Illegal Emissions Tampering, Pocatello ID, 2024
Pocatello, ID – Barry Pierce, owner of GDP Tuning LLC and Custom Auto of Rexburg LLC, doing business as Gorilla Performance, was sentenced to four months in federal prison for his role in a scheme to tamper with emissions control systems in diesel trucks.
According to court documents, Pierce and his companies, GDP Tuning and Gorilla Performance, tampered with monitoring devices required under the Clean Air Act, specifically the on-board diagnostic (OBD) systems in diesel trucks. The first part of the tampering process involved physically removing the emissions control devices, known as “deleting” a truck. The second part involved using computer software to reprogram or tune the vehicle’s OBD to not recognize what had happened, a process known as “tuning.”
An OBD normally detects any removal or malfunction of a vehicle’s emissions control equipment, recording a diagnostic trouble code and triggering a vehicle’s “check engine” light. If a malfunction is not remedied, a vehicle can, in some circumstances, be forced into “limp mode,” with a max speed of five-miles-per-hour. Tuning bypasses these checks even with the emissions control equipment removed.
Pierce and his companies used this scheme to tune and delete hundreds of vehicles at the Gorilla Diesel Performance auto repair shop in Rexburg, Idaho. They also sold tens of millions of dollars’ worth of tuning products and equipment around the country, including what GDP Tuning described as “custom tunes.”
Pierce told Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) inspectors in 2018 that his companies sold kits to delete trucks and products to tune them, including tunes and tuners. In response to EPA’s later follow-up, GDP Tuning produced sales data indicating that it sold over 20,000 tuning products for approximately $14 million in revenue from January 1, 2018, through approximately August 7, 2019.
The EPA law enforcement agents conducted undercover operations to determine the extent of illegal activity at GDP Tuning and Gorilla Diesel Performance. Evidence gathered showed that Gorilla Diesel Performance conducted hundreds of deletes and used GDP Tuning products, with at least seven employees conducting deletes or obtaining tunes for the deleted vehicles. Pierce was aware of and directed the conduct.
The court sentenced Pierce to four months in federal prison, while GDP Tuning and Gorilla Performance were sentenced to five years of probation. The companies and Pierce were also ordered to jointly pay a $1 million fine.
“Protecting Idaho’s environment and promoting public health are top priorities for my office, and the extreme amount of pollution emitted from illegally modified diesel trucks threatens both of these goals,” said U.S. Attorney Josh Hurwit. “We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to hold accountable anyone who purposefully and illegally pollutes our air.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Idaho and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance investigated the case.
Key Facts
- State: Idaho
- Category: Public Corruption|White Collar Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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