'Deeply Troubling' GM Probe Finds No Cover-Up, 15 Fired

But no senior executives are among those let go
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 5, 2014 8:47 AM CDT
'Deeply Troubling' GM Probe Finds No Cover-Up, 15 Fired
Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, speaks at the 2014 Automotive Forum, April 15, 2014 in New York.   (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

General Motors is firing 15 people in connection with its deadly ignition switch scandal, but none of the heads rolling are those of senior executives. CEO Mary Barra today unveiled the results of the company's internal probe, and said that it found no evidence of an intentional cover-up of the defect, or of wrongdoing by the company's senior executives, the New York Times reports. Instead, Barra blamed the failure to report the flaw on bureaucratic issues and individual lower-level employees; she called the report "brutally tough and deeply troubling," notes the AP.

Among those being fired are engineer Ray DeGiorgio (more on him here), and program engineering manager Gary Altman, Bloomberg reports. "From start to finish, the Cobalt saga was riddled with tragedy," Barra said. The probe backed up her assertion that she personally was unaware of the flaw until January. Before Barra even spoke some were criticizing the probe for shielding senior executives. "How do you truly fix a culture of carelessness and cover-up without cutting the head off the snake?" one lawyer representing ignition switch victims asked, according to Reuters. (More General Motors stories.)

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