WASHINGTON—Attorney General Merrick Garland plans to meet with families of people killed in two deadly crashes of Boeing Co. BA -1.33% ’s 737 MAX jet, who say prosecutors should have conferred with them before striking a $2.5 billion settlement with the aerospace company last year.
Mr. Garland intends to speak with family members and their lawyers within the next week, according to a court filing Wednesday. In December some of the families filed a motion asking a judge in Fort Worth, Texas, to find that their rights as crime victims were violated and to consider reopening Boeing’s deal with the government.
Boeing’s settlement included $500 million earmarked for families of 346 people who died in the crashes.
The government’s court filing doesn’t indicate why Mr. Garland wants to meet with the families. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor gave the Justice Department more time to respond to the families’ motion to accommodate Mr. Garland’s meeting, according to a court filing.
Boeing was charged last year with one count of conspiracy to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration. Under an agreement with prosecutors, it was able to avoid prosecution on that charge by paying the fines and compensation and agreeing to avoid legal trouble for a period of three years.
One former Boeing employee, Mark Forkner, has been criminally charged over his dealings with the FAA before air-safety regulators set pilot-training standards for the 737 MAX.
Mr. Forkner, who was chief technical pilot for the aircraft, will face trial in March on fraud charges related to his alleged role in persuading the FAA to approve pilot-training materials that excluded references to a flight-control system involved in the two crashes. Those disasters occurred in Indonesia in late 2018 and in Ethiopia in early 2019.
The 737 MAX, an updated version of the plane maker’s bestselling single-aisle plane, was delivered to its first customer in May 2017. The MAX crisis cost Boeing around $20 billion in lost production, compensation and related charges and provisions.
The families said in their motion that they should have been allowed to meet with prosecutors and provide input before the settlement with Boeing was completed at the end of the Trump administration. The failure to include the families violated their rights under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, according to the motion, which was filed by two lawyers for the families, Warren T. Burns and Paul G. Cassell.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. A spokesman for Boeing didn’t immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
The motion asked Judge O’Connor to consider whether prosecutors violated that law and, if so, to consider remedies including negating Boeing’s settlement and opening the company to “further criminal prosecution.”
Write to Dave Michaels at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the January 21, 2022, print edition as ‘Garland To Meet Jet-Crash Families.’
