Former CFO of Boeing Starts Prison Sentence

Former Boeing Co. finance chief Michael Sears has begun serving a four-month prison term at a minimum security federal prison camp in Oxford, Wis., a prison official said Monday.

Sears, 57, arrived at the prison Friday, said prison unit manager Phillip Shanks.

The former chief financial officer of Boeing was sentenced in February to four months in prison and a $250,000 fine for his role in illegally recruiting Darleen Druyun, a top Department of the Air Force official, for a senior job with Chicago-based Boeing.

He is being housed with three or four other inmates in a dormitory-style room and will be assigned to a prison job after an orientation, Shanks said.

Druyun, who was the Air Force’s No. 2 weapons buyer before taking a $250,000-a-year job with Boeing, is serving a nine-month prison sentence in Florida.

Boeing fired Sears and Druyun in November 2003 for allegedly attempting to hide their initial illegal contacts about a job, which occurred while she was still overseeing billions of dollars of Boeing business with the Air Force.

Phil Condit resigned as Boeing chairman and chief executive a week later. Boeing last month fired Condit’s successor, Harry C. Stonecipher, saying his affair with a female executive showed poor judgment and impaired his ability to lead the company.