Boeing approaches agreement to avoid guilty plea, the biggest collapse case prosecution
The agreement will block the June 23 trial date, and the allegations faced by planners have misled U.S. regulators about critical flight control systems on the 737 Max, the strongest-selling aircraft. This requires the approval of the judge.
The agreement, if approved, would hit families who lost relatives in the crash and urged prosecutors to take trials from U.S. planners.
Sources said Boeing no longer agreed to plead guilty in the case. Prosecutors told families that the company’s posture changed after the judge rejected a previous plea agreement in December.
Justice Department officials said at the meeting that Justice Department officials are still weighing whether to sign a non-procuratorial agreement or to hold Boeing for trial. The official told the family that a final decision has not been made and that Boeing and Justice Department officials have not exchanged documents to negotiate the final details of any non-procuratorial agreement.
Boeing and the DOJ had no comment.”I think this is a terrible deal,” Paul Cassell, a lawyer for family members, said during the meeting according to one of the sources.Nadia Milleron, who lost her daughter in one of the Boeing plane crashes in 2019, told Reuters she questioned how the DOJ, and Attorney General Pam Bondi, could justify cutting a deal with a repeat offender.
Last December, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor of Texas dismissed the case’s previous plea agreement, which was wrong with the diversity and inclusion provisions in the transaction related to the choice of independent monitors. The decision extends the case to the incoming Trump administration, which overhaulsed the Justice Department. Boeing agreed to the initial plea deal in the final months of the Biden administration.
Boeing agreed to plead guilty in July after two fatal 737 Max Max crashes occurred in Indonesia and Ethiopia in 2018 and 2019 and paid up to $487.2 million in fines.
