Families of the victims of two Boeing 737 MAX8 crashes filed a brief today, asking a federal court judge to reject a proposed plea agreement presented by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Boeing to resolve the pending criminal case.
Click here to read the filed court brief.
The judge has previously ruled that Boeing’s crime caused the deaths of 346 victims in the two deadly crashes. The families argue that the agreement improperly conceals the deadly consequences of Boeing’s crime.
Today’s reply brief argues that the DOJ did not reasonably confer with the families about specific terms of the plea agreement. It goes on to ask Judge Reed O’Connor, who is overseeing the criminal matter in federal district court in Fort Worth, Texas, to reject the plea deal because it blocks his ability to craft his sentence for Boeing.
“The proposed plea deal is not only deceptive but morally reprehensible because it fails to hold Boeing accountable for killing 346 people,” said Paul Cassell, attorney for the families in this case and professor of the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. “A judge can reject a plea deal that is not in the public interest, and this misleading and unfair deal is clearly against the public interest. The families ask Judge O’Connor to use his recognized authority to reject this inappropriate plea and airbrushed factual account of what happened.”
After a door plug flew off mid-air of an Alaska Airlines jet in January, the DOJ found in May that Boeing had breached its obligations under a previously entered Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA). In July, the DOJ announced a proposed plea deal that recommends Judge O’Connor impose a fine of only $243.6 million. The deal does not include any prosecution of Boeing executives.
The families argue in today’s brief that the fine is an inadequate response to what Judge O’Connor previously called “the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history.” The families argue the remedial measures and monitoring that the agreement would provide are inadequate to protect the safety of the flying public.
The families also argue that the proposed facts surrounding the plea deal misleadingly exclude the involvement of Boeing’s top executives in the crime.
