Boeing arraigned on criminal fraud charge in crashes that killed 346
Jan. 26 (UPI) — The U.S. Justice Department announced that Boeing is being arraigned Thursday on a criminal conspiracy to commit fraud charge related to two separate 737 Max jet crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019 that killed 346 people.
U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor ordered Boeing’s public arraignment on the felony charge last week. He said then that the law requires Boeing be publicly arraigned and that the crash victims’ families have a right to be heard at the arraignment.
But if Boeing meets all the conditions of a deferred prosecution agreement with the government, the criminal case will not be prosecuted.
The Justice Department said in a statement that Boeing struck a deferred prosecution agreement in January 2021 to resolve “a criminal charge filed simultaneously against Boeing, specifically, conspiracy to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration‘s Aircraft Evaluation Group in connection with the FAA AEG’s evaluation of Boeing’s 737 MAX airplane.”
UPI
