Oliver Schmidt is facing 169 years in prison.

Earlier this week, the 48-year-old German national was frog-marched before the judge who will preside over his coming criminal trail, shackled at the ankles and waist, wearing an orange, Hannibal Lector-style one-piece jumpsuit.

All that was missing, really, was the face mask.

That – and a victim.

Schmidt is one of several VW executives implicated in the diesel "cheating" scandal. He is the former chief of the now-writhing-on-the-floor, hoping-for-mercy German car company's Environmental and Engineering Center in Detroit. VW has thrown him – and six other executives and engineers – under the bus, having already agreed to plead guilty to multiple felony counts.

Not one of them identifying a single specific victim.

This is routine. Which doesn't make it any less bizarre.

169 years in prison is a sentence harsher than the one meted out to Charles Manson (he has been up for parole several times already) and most run-of-the-mill killers, who generally serve about 20 years.