Former Boeing Employee Plea Bargains To Avoid Jail | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-11.27.23

Airborne-NextGen-11.28.23

Airborne-Unlimited-11.29.23 Airborne-Affordable Flyers-11.30.23

Airborne-Unlimited-12.01.23

Sat, Dec 09, 2006

Former Boeing Employee Plea Bargains To Avoid Jail

Accepts 'Obstruction' Charge Instead Of 'Conspiracy'

Former Boeing Engineer Kenneth Branch plea bargained a deal with prosecutors to avoid jail time in a case involving a rivalry between Boeing and Lockheed for the USAF's Evolved Expendable Vehicle Launch (EELV) program.

The two companies were competing for a government satellite launching contract when Branch and another ex-Boeing engineer William Erskine were accused of stealing trade information from Lockheed.

Branch had left Lockheed for a position with Boeing -- Erskine hired him. Erskine allegedly told another Boeing employee he'd hired Branch because Branch had offered to bring Lockheed's entire EELV bid proposal with him.

Charges against another Boeing employee implicated in the case, Larry Satchell, have been dismissed on procedural grounds

Boeing won 19 of 28 contracts it bid on for the satellite project in 1998.

Erskine still faces conspiracy charges, but Branch pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of obstruction of justice last Thursday. US district court Judge Ronald Lew fined Branch $6000 and sentenced him to six months of home detention.

Boeing fired the two and agreed to pay a $615 million settlement to end a justice department investigation into its practices surrounding the bid process, and its relationship with a former Air Force procurement officer involved with the EELV program.

As a result of the settlement and admission by Boeing, the Air Force summarily awarded Lockheed the seven remaining launch contracts worth around $1 billion and suspended Boeing from launching rockets for 20 months.

Just this past week the two companies formed a new joint venture called the United Launch Alliance to administer all future launches for the US government.

FMI: www.boeing.com, www.lockheed.com

Advertisement

More News

Bell Moves some Metal Towards Poland During Euro Rotor 2023

JB Investments Adds 3 More Aircraft in Aircraft Offerings Bell Textron signed a pair of purchase agreements for 2 Bell 407GXis and a Bell 505 to JB Investments of Poland. The aircr>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (11.29.23):

Charted VFR Flyways Charted VFR Flyways are flight paths recommended for use to bypass areas heavily traversed by large turbine-powered aircraft. Pilot compliance with recommended >[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (11.29.23)

Aero Linx: Nigerian College of Aviation Technology Vision: To maintain the prestigious position of the foremost aviation training institution in Africa and be amongst the best in t>[...]

NTSB Prelim: Xtremeair GMBH XA42

Once In The Spin, The Rotation Stopped, Then The Airplane Entered A Secondary Spin And Descended To Ground Contact On November 15, 2023, about 1040 central standard time, an Xtreme>[...]

Airborne 11.27.23: MAX 10 Update, Air Tour Restriction, Starship IFT2 Details

Also: Oshkosh Dates Thru 2027, Liberty University, Inadequate ATC Staffing, Stratolaunch Boeing's 737 MAX 10 has been given the go-ahead for type-inspection authorization by the FA>[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2023 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC