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Former Pentagon official gets nine months in prison in Boeing scandal
 WASHINGTON (AFP) Oct 01, 2004
 Darleen Druyun, a former Air Force official charged in a deal that allowed her to get a job with Boeing after overseeing a controversial lease of tanker planes, was sentenced Friday to nine months in prison, officials said.

Druyun, 56, had pleaded guilty earlier this year to a criminal conspiracy charge for her role in the deal that gave her a lucrative job with the aerospace company after she pressed for a lease agreement on refueling aircraft.

A spokeswoman for the US Attorney's office in Alexandria, Virginia, said Druyun's sentence also calls for seven months' community confinement after her release from prison, three years' probation, 150 hours of community service and a 5,000-dollar fine.

"Darleen Druyun owed her primary allegiance to the American taxpayer. Instead she put her own personal interests ahead of the United States Air Force," US Attorney Paul McNulty said.

Druyun, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition and management, helped negotiate the 2002 deal with the Boeing Company to lease 100 Boeing 767 tanker aircraft for the Air Force for more than 20 billion dollars.

She accepted a job with Boeing in January 2003 as vice president and deputy general manager of missile defense systems.

Prosecutors said Druyun's daughter, herself a Boeing employee, contacted a senior executive of Boeing in September 2002, setting in motion a process in which Druyun worked out a deal to retire from the Air Force and accept the senior position at Boeing.

The scandal forced a high-level shakeup at Boeing and prompted fresh reviews of the lease plan, which some lawmakers criticized as a sweetheart deal for Boeing.

Championed by the Air Force as a way to begin replacing its aging KC-135 fleet more quickly, the contract was fiercely opposed by Republican Senator John McCain and others, who said it would be more economical to purchase aircraft.

In May, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put the plan on hold until further studies are completed in November.

A Pentagon advisory board recently concluded there is no compelling material or financial reason to replace the Air Force's refueling jets.

Some critics of the deal said the program should be reopened to allow Europe's Airbus, which lost out for the contract, to submit another bid.