WASHINGTON, (AFP) - Boeing's former chief financial officer pleaded guilty to illegally hiring a US Air Force official who helped negotiate a controversial, multibillion-dollar air tanker deal.
Micheal Sears, 57, could face up to five years in prison and 250,000 dollars in fines, but his attorney said that sentencing guidelines put his client's sentence at a maximum of six months.
He is free on bond pending a January 21 sentencing hearing.
Boeing fired Sears in November 2003 when it emerged that he was talking to an Air Force procurement official about a job at Boeing while she was representing the Air Force in the tanker negotiations with Boeing.
The official, Darleen Druyun, later joined Boeing and was fired at the same time as Sears for the same ethics violations.
Druyun, 56, was sentenced to nine months in prison for the illegal job talks last month.
In court documents, Druyun admitted that she gave Boeing a higher-than-deserved price for its tankers, confirming critics' suspicions that the 28 billion-dollar contract was a "sweetheart" deal that benefited the aerospace giant at the expense of US taxpayers.
The revelations of the behind-the-scenes negotiations effectively scuppered the deal, and led to a wide-ranging federal probe of Air Force contracts awarded to Boeing going back almost a decade.
Air Force Secretary James Roche, Air Force acquisitions chief Marvin Sambur and White House budget official Robin Cleveland are being investigated on alleged federal conflict-of-interest violations related to the program.
The Air Force, meanwhile, put its tanker plans on hold pending the publication of two Pentagon studies on military tanker needs and options which should be complete in the next few weeks.
11/16/2004 - 09:54 GMT - AFP