THE former chief financial officer of Boeing was jailed for four months yesterday for helping a US Air Force weapons buyer to secure a $250,000-a-year job at the defence giant.
Michael Sears was also fined $250,000 and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service. After the sentencing Sears, who was once in line for the chief executive’s job at Boeing, said: “The past 15 months have been the worst of my life.”
Sears pleaded guilty on November 15 to conspiring to violate conflict of interest laws by holding job negotiations with Darleen Druyun, a Defence Department procurement chief, while she was in charge of handing out contracts worth billions to defence companies. He had faced up to six months in prison.
Druyun is serving a nine-month sentence after pleading guilty to a felony charge. She admitted giving favoured treatment to Boeing for years while she worked for the air force. Among her tasks at the air force was managing a now-abandoned $23.5 billion deal involving the lease and sale of 100 Boeing 767 air refuelling tankers.
Yesterday prosecutors filed documents in an attempt to widen the blame for the procurement scandal to Boeing’s senior management. Prosecutors said that management did not ask “the logical questions” or “confront the obvious legal and ethical issues” that may have prevented the offence.
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Sears has agreed to co-operate with the Government. He maintains that other Boeing executives did not participate in his “spontaneous decision” to hire Druyun.
This week it emerged that the Pentagon had uncovered eight more contracts worth $3 billion (£1.6 billion) that were influenced by Druyun.