Judge rules Boeing must appear for arraignment in 737 MAX fraud trial
Jack Birle
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A federal judge in Texas ruled that Boeing must appear at an arraignment next week in the fraud trial related to its 737 MAX planes.
Judge Reed C. O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas made the order Tuesday after families of victims in two crashes involving the planes disapproved of a plea deal and requested the company’s immunity from liability be retracted.
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Boeing had originally settled with the Justice Department for $2.5 billion in January 2021. That settlement stemmed from charges of “conspiracy to defraud” over the company’s design of the popular 737 MAX airplanes. The planes had to be grounded in the United States for nearly 20 months in 2019 and 2020 after two deadly crashes involving the planes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
The judge ordered “an appropriate person appear at the arraignment” for Boeing scheduled for Jan. 26 at 9 a.m. local time in Fort Worth, Texas.
The order comes after the judge ruled in October 2022 that the deferred prosecution agreement between the Justice Department and Boeing “was negotiated in violation of the victim’s rights.”
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Boeing previously objected to the victims bringing the case after a settlement with the Justice Department was agreed to. The company said the court should reject the families’ request to continue the case, noting they had followed the deferred prosecution agreement for the last two years.
“An investigated party has the right to finality and to the benefits of a resolution it negotiated with the Government, and allowing those expectations to be upended here—based on a purported violation by the Government as to the Representatives, over which Boeing had no control—would be unprecedented, unworkable, and inequitable,” Boeing said in a response filed in November 2022.