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'Diesel Bros.' fined $850,000, banned from defeating vehicle emission controls

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Posted at 11:53 AM, Mar 10, 2020
and last updated 2020-03-11 09:09:37-04

SALT LAKE CITY — Three Utah men who appear in the Discovery Channel reality show "Diesel Bros." have been ordered to pay a fine of $850,000 for violating the Clean Air Act.

On Friday, a federal judge found David "Heavy D" Sparks, Joshua "Redbear" Stuart, Keaton "The Muscle" Hoskins and several of their companies to have willfully violated the Clean Air Act more than 400 times, a news release from Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment said.

The ruling also prohibits Sparks, Stuart and Hoskins from defeating emissions control devices on vehicles.

The defendants willfully violated the Clean Air Act more than 400 times by removing pollution controls from vehicles, and selling/installing emission control defeat devices in vehicles, the news release said.

UPHE President Dr. Brian Moench filed a complaint back in 2016 stating the Diesel Brothers — famously known for their reality TV show on the Discovery Channel — were illegally removing pollution control equipment from their diesel trucks, installing defective emission control parts, along with selling and operating those diesel trucks.

“They’re well known and their calling card is dismantling diesel control devices for trucks,” Moench said in an interview with FOX 13 last year. “These are monster trucks that are putting out monster quantities of pollution.”

Without the proper pollution control equipment, Moench said the diesel trucks were making 30 to 40 times more air pollution.

Cole Cannon, an attorney for the Diesel Bros., said there were 17 trucks found with altered emission control systems, and not all of them had been altered by his clients.

“The contributions that the Diesel brothers have made to our local community, which have been a lot are not overshadowed by 17 trucks," Cannon said.

Watch FOX 13 for updates.