- Boeing had previously reached a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice in connection with two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019.
- The Justice Department plans to bring fraud charges against Boeing after authorities found the company violated the contract.
- A lawyer for the families of the victims told BI that the new plea agreement does not hold Boeing responsible for the fatal accident.
Families of victims of the two Boeing 737 Max crashes are slamming the plea deals the Department of Justice is offering to the plane maker, lawyers representing some of the families told Business Insider.
Federal prosecutors have given Boeing until the end of the week to accept the contract and plead guilty to fraud or face trial in connection with two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
The Justice Department notified victims’ families and lawyers of the weekend deadline on Sunday, according to sources.
Spokespeople for the Department of Justice and Boeing did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s requests for comment.
Paul Cassell, an attorney representing 15 of the victims’ families, said in an email to Business Insider that the Justice Department’s offer is “yet another sweet plea deal” and that the families vigorously oppose it.
The agreement, which the Justice Department has not yet made public, includes a “small monetary penalty,” three years of probation and a corporate monitor, but “the 346 deaths will not be recognized,” Cassell said.
“This plea agreement makes no acknowledgement of the fact that Boeing’s crimes cost 346 lives,” Cassell wrote to BI. “It also appears to be based on the notion that Boeing did not harm the victims. The families will vigorously oppose this plea agreement.”
Boeing initially avoided fraud charges related to two fatal crashes, one off the coast of Indonesia and the other in Ethiopia, by agreeing to a $2.5 billion deferred prosecution settlement.
In addition to the fine, the aircraft maker was required to agree to a rigorous “compliance program,” according to a Department of Justice press release from 2021. The agreement required Boeing to meet with the Department of Justice’s fraud division and submit annual reports on its “remediation efforts.”
But in May, investigators accused Boeing of violating the terms of the agreement, again leaving the company facing criminal charges.
U.S. prosecutors have recommended that the Justice Department bring federal criminal charges against Boeing, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Regarding the possibility that the Justice Department could offer a plea deal to Boeing, the judge “must determine whether this no-liability deal is in the public interest,” Cassell wrote to BI.
“The memory of 346 innocent people murdered by Boeing demands no more justice than this,” he wrote.
