Lawyer: Boeing Set to Get a 'Sweetheart Deal' From DOJ

Last week federal prosecutors recommended the Justice Department bring criminal charges against Boeing over its failure to keep the terms of an agreement sparing the company from legal action in 737 Max crashes that killed a combined 346 people. A lawyer for the families of those crash victims say what's in the works is a "sweetheart plea deal."

Reuters reports the DOJ plans to criminally charge Boeing, with sources saying the company can go to trial or take the deal, which is said to include a $487.2 million fine (Boeing would be credited for a previous settlement and only pay half) and the assignment of an independent monitor to audit the company's safety practices for a three-year period. The DOJ is said to have briefed victims' relatives on Sunday. More:

• Standout lines: "The memory of 346 innocents killed by Boeing demands more justice than this," victims' lawyer Paul Cassell tells the BBC, saying the "families will strenuously object to this plea deal." He adds, "The deal will not acknowledge, in any way, that Boeing's crime killed 346 people. It also appears to rest on the idea that Boeing did not harm any victim."
• What the families want: Per a letter Cassell sent to the DOJ in June, the families of victims of the October 2018 Lion Air and March 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crashes wanted to see Boeing's then-top executives prosecuted and a $24.8 billion fine levied.
• Next steps: USA Today reports that should Boeing accept the plea offer, US District Judge Reed O'Connor of Texas will be the one to decide whether to accept the plea agreement in the public interest. Lawyers say victims' families plan to fly in from around the world to attend any hearing and voice their opposition.

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• The timeline: CNN explains that the DOJ in June let Boeing know that the safety failures it has racked up lately put the company in breach of the 2021 agreement through which Boeing avoided criminal charges (specifically, criminal conspiracy charge to commit fraud) related to the 737 Max crashes. The DOJ said that meant Boeing is subject to criminal prosecution, but it had not announced whether it planned to prosecute the case. The DOJ has a July 7 deadline to file charges, so Boeing will have until week's end to decide whether to accept the plea deal.
• Side note: Reuters reports it's atypical for the DOJ to loop in third parties (in this case, the victims' families) about its plans prior to alerting the company it intends to charge. Reuters sees the shift as a reaction to the relatives' outcry over the original 2021 agreement, which they learned about after it had been reached.
• The anger: The Guardian reports that "on a conference call on Sunday, one official is said to have been asked by a family member how he sleeps at night."

(More Boeing stories.)