A lawyer for relatives of passengers killed by two Boeing 737 Max crashes is urging new US attorney general Pam Bondi to get involved with negotiating a guilty plea by Boeing on charges that it defrauded the Federal Aviation Administration.
Attorney Paul Cassell sent a letter on 6 February to Bondi, urging that any new plea agreement recognise the people killed by the crashes in 2018 and 2019.
“The families would like to meet with you to discuss any new proposed plea with Boeing,” Cassell writes. “The families are looking for any plea deal the department might offer to Boeing to require Boeing to admit the truth: that its criminal conspiracy directly killed 346 people.”
Neither the DOJ nor Boeing responded to requests for comment.
Boeing and the DOJ had previously reached an agreement under which Boeing would plead guilty to the fraud charges. Cassell and other attorneys representing victims’ families criticised the DOJ for agreeing to a deal that did not mention victims.
In December, however, judge Reed O’Connor with US District Court for the Northern District of Texas threw out the plea agreement, citing concern about “diversity and inclusion”-related provisions.
Boeing and the DOJ have since said they are renegotiating a plea proposal.
In his letter, Cassell asks Bondi to take a new approach, “in contrast to the deceptive way that the previous administration was handling this case”.
The US Senate on 4 February confirmed Bondi as head of the DOJ.
Cassell urges speed from Bondi because judge O’Connor has given Boeing and the DOJ until 16 February to provide the court with a status update.
“The families are concerned that, without your intervention, the Fraud Section may be preparing to propose a plea deal to judge O’Connor in which Boeing’s role in directly and proximately killing 346 victims is concealed,” Cassell writes. “If the new plea deal is like the old one, it will (offensively) take the position that Boeing’s crime did not have multiple victims.”
