The plea deal would take away the ability of US District Judge Reed O’Connor to increase Boeing’s sentence for a conviction, and some of the families plan to ask the Texas judge to reject the deal if Boeing agrees to it.
“The underlying outrageous piece of this deal is that it doesn’t acknowledge that Boeing’s crime killed 346 people,” said Paul Cassell, one of the lawyers for victims’ families. “Boeing is not going to be held accountable for that, and they are not going to admit that that happened.”
Sanjiv Singh, a lawyer for 16 families who lost relatives in the October 2018 Lion Air crash off Indonesia, called the plea offer “extremely disappointing.” The terms, he said, “read to me like a sweetheart deal”.
Another lawyer representing families who are suing Boeing, Mark Lindquist, said he asked the head of the Justice Department’s fraud section, Glenn Leon, whether the department would add additional charges if Boeing turns down the plea deal. “He wouldn’t commit one way or another,” Lindquist said.
A conviction could jeopardise Boeing’s status as a federal contractor, according to some legal experts. The company has large contracts with the Pentagon and NASA.
However, federal agencies can give waivers to companies that are convicted of felonies to keep them eligible for government contracts. Lawyers for the crash victims’ families expect that would be done for Boeing.
Boeing paid a US$244 million fine as part of the 2021 settlement of the original fraud charge. The Justice Department is likely to seek another, similar penalty as part of the new plea offer, said a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing case.
The Justice Department gave no indication of moving to prosecute any current or former Boeing executives, another long-sought demand of the families.
It is also unclear what impact a plea deal might have on other investigations into Boeing, including those following the blowout of a panel from the side of a Boeing Max 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight in January.
