Reporting by George Fabe Russell, Hendersonville Times-News
HENDERSONVILLE – A man previously sentenced to prison for selling thousands of illegal “tuners,” designed to bypass vehicle emissions control systems, out of a shop in Flat Rock, was pardoned by President Donald Trump on July 3.
Matthew Sidney Geouge, now 39, pleaded guilty in 2021 to conspiracy, violating the Clean Air Act and tax evasion. He was sentenced in 2022 to just over a year in prison, along with three years of supervised release and to pay $2.5 million in restitution to the EPA and the IRS, the Times-News previously reported.
Trump announced the pardon in a July 3 post on Truth Social, saying that Geouge and five others he pardoned were “persecuted by the Biden Administration” for “fixing their car.”
“I AM SETTING THEM ALL FREE, RIGHT NOW!” he said.
Geouge was no longer in custody as of March 2023, according to a Federal Bureau of Prisons database.
Trump’s July 3 pardons also included Adam Kinan, vice chairman of the Staffing Advisory Group, who had been sentenced to prison in 2006 with business partner and Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff for wire fraud, Reuters reported. Trump pardoned 11 people total on July 3, most of whom were also convicted of Clean Air Act violations, Reuters reported.
What are ‘tuners’?
Tuners are electronic devices that hook up to a vehicle’s computer and prevent emissions control faults from registering and being stored in the computer, in violation of the Clean Air Act, according to documents filed in federal court for the Western District of North Carolina. Geouge sold devices for diesel trucks, documents say.
The Clean Air Act was established by Congress in 1970 to protect public health against toxic airborne pollutants found in exhaust from cars, power plants and factories, according to the EPA’s website.
The Justice Department announced earlier this year that it was no longer pursuing criminal charges under the Clean Air Act based on “allegations of tampering with onboard diagnostic devices in motor vehicles,” according to USA TODAY reporting.
What did Matthew Sidney Geouge do?
Geouge began selling tuners and creating and selling “tunes,” or software for the devices, at least as early as 2008 until the beginning of 2017, court documents say.
He sold more than 14,000 illegal devices, continuing even after a 2015 notice of violation from the EPA, making more than $10 million through 2019, the Times-News reported.
He concealed his assets from the government by, on paper, having someone else receive his income from the devices, and owed about $346,000 for tax years 2015 to 2019, the Times-News reported.
The EPA penalized Geouge $4.1 million in 2018, which he had not paid as of the time of his 2021 charges, according to court documents.
Three of Geouge’s co-conspirators were sentenced to house arrest, community service, probation and fines of up to $150,000 rather than prison time, the Times-News reported.
Geouge’s businesses, Spartan Truck Solutions and Spartan Diesel Technologies, on South Allen Road in Flat Rock, were dissolved in 2017 and 2018, according to a North Carolina Secretary of State’s Office database.
Geouge couldn’t be reached for comment July 8.
Trump’s rollback of EPA regulations
During Trump’s first term, his administration rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations and, last year, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency will take 31 more actions against environment regulation, USA TODAY reported.
The administration in February repealed a scientific finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health, and eliminated federal tailpipe emissions standards for cars and trucks, according to Reuters reporting.
George Fabe Russell is the Henderson County Reporter for the Hendersonville Times-News. Tips, questions, comments? Email him at GFRussell@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News.
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