By Mike Spector and David Shepardson
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Justice Department officials plan to decide as soon as the end of May whether Boeing (NYSE:) violated an agreement that shielded the plane maker from criminal charges over fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 , people familiar with the matter said. .
Government officials unveiled the timeline Wednesday during five-hour meetings in which families of the victims of the two Boeing 737 MAX crashes pressured U.S. officials to pursue criminal charges against the plane maker.
The families have argued that Boeing violated a 2021 deal with prosecutors to overhaul its compliance program after the crashes, which killed 346 people.
Federal prosecutors had agreed to ask a judge to dismiss a criminal charge against Boeing as long as the company complied with terms of the deal for a three-year period.
But during an Alaska Airlines flight on January 5, just two days before the 2021 agreement expires, a panel blew off a new Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft.
The agreement gives US officials six months from the deal’s expiration on January 7 – or until July 7 – to decide whether to prosecute Boeing on charges of conspiring to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration, or whether to pursue other alternatives pursue dismissal of the case.
Paul Cassell, an attorney for the families, said Wednesday that the Justice Department plans to give Boeing and the families at least 30 days’ notice of its decision before the deadline, which would mean a decision in early June.
“We certainly hope that they do the right thing and continue to pursue this case,” Cassell said, adding that government attorneys declined to answer specific questions about the review. “If we learn that the Department of Justice plans to drop charges, we will aggressively fight it.”
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Justice Department officials are now weighing that incident as part of a broader investigation into whether Boeing violated the deal, known as a deferred prosecution agreement, or DPA, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Naoise Connolly Ryan, whose husband, Mick Ryan, was killed in the 2019 crash of Ethiopia’s Boeing 737 MAX, said the Boeing deal was a “miscarriage of justice” in 2021.
“We don’t want a third crash,” Ryan said. “We hope that the Justice Department will now do the right thing and not dismiss the charges against Boeing.”
A government official said at Wednesday’s meeting that the Justice Department will likely decide by the end of May whether it believes there was a breach or not, two sources told Reuters.
Family members argue that an independent monitor is needed to ensure Boeing complies with the agreement. Boeing’s deal had no such requirement, unlike some previous agreements with other companies.
Boeing did not comment Wednesday, while the Justice Department declined comment.
In January 2021, Boeing agreed to pay $2.5 billion to resolve a criminal investigation into the company’s conduct surrounding the crashes. The U.S. plane maker agreed to compensate victims’ relatives and review its compliance practices as part of the deal with prosecutors.
At an earlier meeting in April with family members’ lawyers, Justice Department officials said they were looking at circumstances outlined in the 2021 deal that could lead Boeing to breach the agreement, such as committing a crime by the company or misleading U.S. officials, one of the people with knowledge of the matter said.
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