ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- U.S. prosecutors expect a former top Boeing official to plead guilty to conflict of interest charges and disclose facts potentially damaging to the company.
Michael Sears, once the company's chief financial officer, was expected to plead guilty Monday in an Alexandria, Va., court to aiding and abetting illegal employment negotiations in late 2002 with Darleen Druyun, the Air Force's second-highest acquisition official at the time, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Sears' disclosures, part of a reported plea agreement, could shed more light on what other Boeing officials knew about efforts to curry favor with Druyun and recruit her for a job before she removed herself from authority over company business with the Air Force.
Sears isn't expected to say he personally negotiated contracts with Druyun, sentenced last month to nine months in prison after admitting she steered billions of dollars in contracts to Boeing, or indicate he knew Boeing had received favored treatment from the Air Force. Sears faces as much as six months in prison on the aiding and abetting charge.
After leaving the Air Force, which has disclosed that from 1997 to 2001 Druyun had the final say on 11 contracts valued at more than $30 billion, Druyun got a $250,000-a-year job at Boeing.
