Politics

Trump pardons local mechanic who sold devices to evade clean-air law

By KATIE MYERS, Blue Ridge Public Radio, Published: July 8, 2026

President Donald Trump this month issued a presidential pardon to a Hendersonville mechanic who was convicted in 2022 of violating the Clean Air Act.

The pardon came alongside 10 others, most of them also Clean Air Act violators around the country.

Matthew Sidney "Matt" Geouge, who founded a company called Spartan Diesel Technologies, was accused of manufacturing and selling around 14,000 “tuners,” a device that allows Ford diesel trucks to evade federal emissions regulations by bypassing the need for certain expensive parts, like diesel filters and exhaust gas recirculation systems.

The EPA sent notice of violation to Geouge in 2015, but Geouge ignored it along with resulting penalties owed to EPA for the violations.

In October 2018, the EPA fined Geouge $4,154,805 for “selling at least 5,000 illegal vehicle emissions system defeat devices from 2011 through 2013,” according to federal court records. Despite that, Geouge continued the illegal manufacturing and sales of the devices, grossing more than $10 million while concealing his assets and income from the IRS. After pleading guilty in 2022 to conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act and tax evasion, Geouge was sentenced to one year and one day of prison time and ordered to pay the IRS $1,205,532 in back taxes and penalties.

(Roger Shiflett, owner of Roger Shiflett Ford in Gaffney, S.C., which employed Geouge as lead diesel mechanic and service manager, vouched for the defendant’s “high character and integrity” in a letter to Chief U.S. District Court Judge Martin Reidinger. His fiancée, Caroline Jackson, a single mother with a son who has epilepsy, told the judge that Geouge “chose to be a dad he didn’t have to be, an incalculable gift.”)

Federal deregulatory actions earlier this year paved the way for the pardon. In January, the EPA repealed its 2009 endangerment finding, a landmark ruling that allowed the agency to regulate greenhouse gas polluters. In January, the Department of Justice stopped prosecuting all criminal cases similar to Geouge’s, saying they could still be pursued as civil offenses.

“It is my Great Honor to have just signed Pardons for six people who were persecuted by the Biden Administration, and were in, or being sent to, prison, for ‘fixing their car,’” Trump said in a post on Truth Social that announced six pardons. Proponents of the pardons say that the emission-reducing vehicle parts necessitated expensive repairs and were burdensome for truckers.

However, vehicle emissions are a major threat to human health, said Andrew Whelan, director of communications strategy at CleanAIRE NC, advocates for air quality throughout North Carolina. Vehicle emissions include not only carbon dioxide, but carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and soot pollution, which can enter the bloodstream. EPA regulations existed for a reason, Whelan said.

“They’re in place to protect public health,” he said. “These pollutants can cause serious health problems including asthma, heart disease, stroke and even cancer. And the risk to children and the elderly is especially high.”

Geouge did not respond to BPR’s requests for comment by press time.

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This coverage is made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.