The owners of two Clark County automotive businesses were sentenced Monday to home confinement for violations of the federal Clean Air Act for tampering with emission monitoring systems in more than 350 diesel trucks.
Tracy Coiteux, 46, and Sean Coiteux, 50, of La Center, co-owners of Racing Performance Maintenance Northwest, were both sentenced to four months of home confinement, four years of probation and 60 hours of community service, and each must pay a $10,000 fine, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The two also co-owned a sales company, RPM Motors and Sales NW.
Following a three-day trial in U.S. District Court in Tacoma, a jury in May convicted Tracy Coiteux of tampering with diesel trucks’ emission systems when removing pollution control equipment between January 2018 and November 2020. Sean Coiteux pleaded guilty in March to violating the Clean Air Act.
Over three years, the two businesses tampered with approximately 375 diesel trucks and earned $538,477 for these modifications, according to a Department of Justice news release.
An indictment returned in May 2021 charged Tracy Coiteux, Sean Coiteux and service manager, Nick Akerill, with conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act and 11 specific violations of the Clean Air Act. Investigators were tipped off by a former employee who notified the state’s Environmental Protection Agency that the company was performing unlawful modifications, according to the news release.
Akerill previously pleaded guilty to state pollution charges and was sentenced to work 30 days on a Clark County work crew.
Prosecutors attempted to put the amount of air pollution involved in perspective: By removing pollution controls on some 375 trucks, the “Coiteuxs in effect placed the pollution equivalent of 127,500 new trucks on the road. To put this in perspective, there are only 274,000 diesel trucks registered statewide in Washington.”
In the news release, U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman said that the couple knowingly harmed the environment by removing the pollution controls from the diesel trucks, causing them to continuously spread massive amounts of pollutants. Emissions of diesel exhaust are harmful to human health with links to cancer and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, according to the American Cancer Society.
“The Coiteuxs knew their conduct was illegal and was harming the environment but kept it up to help pay for their 10-acre estate, yacht and collection of exotic cars,” Gorman said.
