Liam Conner
washington — The Justice Department said it is determining whether to prosecute plane maker Boeing after federal investigators accused the company of violating the terms of a 2021 Deferred Prosecution Agreementaccording to a letter filed in a Texas court on Tuesday.
In January 2021 – following two accidents of the 737 Max jets years earlier that killed 346 people – Boeing and the federal government reached an agreement in which the company agreed to pay a $2.5 billion settlement and comply with escrow stipulations, in exchange for the Justice Department drop a fraud conspiracy charge after three years.
That three-year period, overseen by a federal judge in Texas, was set to expire in July and would have resulted in the Justice Department dismissing the case if it determined that Boeing fully complied with the conditions.
But on Tuesday, federal prosecutors wrote that Boeing “violated its obligations” under the deferred prosecution agreement, in part by allegedly failing to “design, implement and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of U.S. fraud laws throughout your country.” operations.”
“By failing to fully comply with the terms and obligations of the DPA, Boeing is subject to prosecution by the United States for any federal criminal violation,” Justice Department officials wrote in the letter. “The Government is determining how it will proceed in this matter.”
The letter argued that investigators are no longer bound by the 2021 agreement and are “not limited” in their investigation into the aircraft manufacturing giant.
Boeing has until June 13 to respond to the Justice Department’s allegations and its explanation will be used as prosecutors consider their next move, the filing said.
The news comes more than five months after the cabin door of an Alaska Airlines plane exploded mid-flight, triggering congressional and federal investigations. In March, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News that prosecutors were looking at whether anything that led to or contributed to the explosion could affect the deferred prosecution agreement.
There was no mention of the Alaska Airlines flight in the letter.
In a statement provided to CBS News on Tuesday evening, a Boeing spokesperson acknowledged that the company had received the letter and said that “we believe we have honored the terms of this agreement and look forward to the opportunity to respond to the Department regarding this Ao As we do so, we will engage with the Department with the utmost transparency, as we have done throughout the term of the agreement, including in responding to your questions following the Alaska Airlines 1282 crash.
A former quality manager who blew the whistle on Spirit AeroSystems, a troubled Boeing supplier that builds most of the 737 Max, told CBS News he was pressured to downplay the problems he found when inspecting the plane’s fuselages. Speaking publicly for the first time last week, Santiago Paredes said he often encountered problems when inspecting the area around the same door panel of the aircraft that took off Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 just minutes after taking off from Portland, Oregon, on 5 of January.
Last month, families of some of the victims of the 737 Max crash met with Justice Department officials for an update on the case against Boeing. In their Tuesday letter, prosecutors told the judge that the Justice Department “will continue to speak with family members of the victims of the Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashes” and that the Justice Department “ separately notified victims and airline customers today of the breach determination.”
“This is a positive first step and, for the families, a long step,” Paul Cassell, an attorney who represents the families of some of the victims of the 737 crashes, said in a statement. “But we need to see more action from the DOJ to hold Boeing accountable, and we plan to use our meeting on May 31 to explain in more detail what we believe would be a satisfactory resolution to Boeing’s ongoing criminal conduct.”
The Justice Department declined to comment further when contacted by CBS News.
—Kris Van Cleave, Michael Kaplan and Sheena Samu contributed to this report.
