Former Boeing CFO gets four months in prison

Former Boeing Co. Chief Financial Officer Michael Sears was sentenced yesterday to four months in prison and a $250,000 fine for his part in illegally recruiting a top Air Force official to the company.

"I know what I did was wrong and I'm truly sorry," Mr Sears told the court.

His lawyers had sought probation. But US District Judge Gerald Lee said prison time was necessary, in part because of the impact of Mr Sears's acts on the integrity of the weapons buying process.

Former No. 2 Air Force weapons buyer Darleen Druyun was sentenced last year to nine months in prison for negotiating the $250,000-a-year job at Boeing with Mr Sears while she was still overseeing the company's contracts with the Air Force. It was not immediately clear if Mr Sears's sentencing ends prosecutors' interest in Boeing.

Mr Sears, 57, met Ms Druyun secretly in Orlando, Florida, on October 17, 2002. The next day, Mr Sears reported what he called the "non-meeting" to the three other members of a newly created Office of the Chairman, as well as to James Albaugh, president of Boeing's Integrated Defence Systems business unit.