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Lockheed allegations focus on Boeing's chief exec

By David Bowermaster
Seattle Times aerospace reporter

Court filings target CEO Harry Stonecipher.

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Lockheed Martin has introduced evidence in a civil lawsuit that allegedly demonstrates Boeing Chief Executive Harry Stonecipher knew former Air Force acquisitions officer Darleen Druyun gave Boeing preferential treatment in the award of billions of dollars of Defense Department contracts before she joined the company last year.

Additionally, Lockheed introduced evidence it says shows Stonecipher and James Albaugh, chief executive of Boeing's Integrated Defense Systems unit, attended a September 1998 meeting with Druyun and Air Force Col. Richard McKinney in which Boeing allegedly received details of a confidential Lockheed proposal to provide rocket launches to the Air Force.

Druyun received a nine-month prison sentence last month for holding job talks with Boeing while still overseeing Boeing business at the Air Force. She further admitted to awarding more than $5 billion of Defense Department contracts to Boeing in exchange for jobs for her daughter, her son-in-law and herself.

Boeing and Stonecipher have been adamant that if Druyun showed the company any favoritism, Boeing was not aware of it.

"The statements Ms. Druyun made in her sentencing papers came as a total surprise," Boeing said last month.

However, Lockheed said in a court filing last week that it has "an e-mail written by Mr. Stonecipher admitting that Darleen Druyun had favored Boeing in the past."

It is not clear from the filing when the e-mail was written. The e-mail itself was placed under seal by the court.

Lockheed and Boeing officials could not be reached for comment.

Lockheed is pursuing a civil racketeering lawsuit against Boeing in Orlando, Fla., that accuses Boeing of using 40,000 pages of stolen Lockheed documents to gain an unfair advantage in a multibillion-dollar competition to provide satellite launches to the Air Force.

Druyun was not tied to that case originally. But after her guilty plea last month, Lockheed sought Boeing e-mails and other documents showing contacts between Boeing and Druyun concerning both the rocket competition and several other contracts she awarded to Boeing rather than Lockheed.
 
In October 1998, the Air Force awarded 19 launches to Boeing and seven to Lockheed.

The Air Force cited Boeing's lower price-per-launch as a major reason for giving Boeing so many launches.

Lockheed said in last week's court filing that handwritten notes of the September 1998 meeting between Stonecipher, Albaugh, Druyun, McKinney and other Air Force officials suggest Boeing also received unfair treatment in the award of those launches by receiving confidential Lockheed pricing data.

"The fact that high-level Boeing officials discussed their proposal strategy and Lockheed Martin's pricing with Ms. Druyun shortly before the final (rocket) proposal submission is damning," Lockheed said.

The meeting notes, taken by David Schweikle, project manager for Boeing's Delta IV rocket program, were, like the Stonecipher e-mail, placed under seal.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Karla Spaulding last week agreed to let Lockheed lawyers question a Boeing representative about communications with Druyun on six contract competitions, including the rocket-launch contract.

"It may lead to admissible evidence about whether Boeing had improperly acquired proprietary information of Lockheed and others that it discussed with Druyun," the judge wrote.

Boeing lawyers objected to the judge's order, and a hearing was set for next month to resolve the objections.

The Boeing attorneys, in court filings, said Lockheed's request for information on Druyun is too broad, has nothing to do with the case and is an attempt by Lockheed Martin to concoct new complaints against Boeing.

Chief weapons buyer for Air Force quits

WASHINGTON — The Air Force's chief weapons buyer said yesterday he is resigning to help clear the way for promotions bottled up in Congress over a stalled $23.5 billion plan to acquire Boeing 767 tanker aircraft.

Marvin Sambur said he had resigned as assistant Air Force secretary for acquisition effective Jan. 20, or sooner should President Bush's next choice for the job be confirmed before then.

"It's becoming pretty apparent that if I stayed it would be very difficult for the Air Force to have anybody confirmed," Sambur said in a telephone interview.

On Tuesday, Air Force Secretary James Roche resigned in a move aides said was also designed to free up nominations of officers whose Senate confirmations were held up by Armed Services Committee member John McCain, R-Ariz.

McCain had blocked a range of promotions over the Air Force proposal to acquire 100 Boeing 767 aerial tankers, which he slammed as a government handout to Boeing.

Sambur was once the boss of Darleen Druyun, who admitted improperly steering billions of dollars of Air Force contracts to Boeing before joining the company as a $250,000-a-year vice president in January 2003.

A former president and chief executive of ITT Defense, Sambur oversees the Air Force's $37 billion procurement budget.

Reuters