In Fort Worth courtroom, Boeing to be arraigned, families to testify in case involving deadly crashes of 737 Max jet
FORT WORTH, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) – On Thursday, the Boeing company will be formally arraigned in a criminal case stemming from two deadly crashes involving its 737 Max jet.
The hearing will take place at the U.S. Courthouse in Fort Worth where Judge Reed O'Connor is requiring a company representative to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty.
The victims' families will also be able to testify about how the deadly crashes changed their lives.
Michael Stumo of Massachusetts lost his 24-year-old daughter, Samya Rose.
"She was beautiful, charismatic, intelligent, caring."
Samya Rose was among those aboard an Ethiopian Air 737 Max jet when it went down after takeoff in Ethiopia in March 2019.
A Lion Air 737 Max crashed after takeoff in Indonesia in October 2018.
In all, 346 people were killed.
Stumo said he and other family members will testify before Judge O'Connor. "We want him to know how our lives were diminished, how we have gaps, our lives just aren't the same as they were."
Federal court records show two years ago this month, the U.S. Justice Department and Boeing entered into a deferred prosecution agreement.
The filings show the company agreed to pay a $243 million criminal penalty, which court records described as "a fine at the low end."
More than $1.7 billion would go to the airlines that bought Boeing's 737 Max jets, and $500 million in additional compensation would go to victims' heirs and relatives.
As a result of the agreement, Boeing wouldn't be indicted even though it was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States in connection with two employees accused of misleading the FAA how the MAX's new flight controls operated.
The Justice Department decided the victims' families were not crime victims under federal law and couldn't give their input in the case.
Families of the victims filed motions in court in December 2021 asking a judge to declare them crime victims.
Records show last April, Texas Senator Ted Cruz blasted the Justice Department's decision in a letter to Judge O'Connor. "...If the government did not think these people were victims, it is hard to see why it thought a half-billion dollar compensation fund was appropriate. The Justice Department's attempt to have it both ways now is simply not credible..."
In October, Judge O'Connor ruled family members were crime victims and could be heard in court.
Stumo said, "We were obviously very happy that he sided in our favor that we were victims."
Boeing declined comment about the case to CBS 11 and the Justice Department didn't respond to our request for comment Wednesday.
Earlier this week, we asked a Justice Department spokesman why the agency filed the case in Fort Worth even though its office is in Washington, D.C., Boeing is based in Virginia, and the plane was engineered in Seattle.
The Justice Department spokesman declined comment.
Stumo said after earning a degree in global health, his daughter was heading to East Africa to help set up a new health care initiative. "Got her dream job. She was on top of the world. And it ended up, she was the one who left us after six minutes in this plane. Had she been around for the next 60 years, she would have accomplished astounding things in her field."