Hughes Aircraft, Former Supervisor Are Indicted
Hughes Aircraft and a former Hughes supervisor were indicted in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Thursday on charges that they failed to properly test electronic components used in jet fighters, missiles and other weapons and falsified documentation to show that the defective parts passed rigorous tests.
The Los Angeles-based aerospace firm, a subsidiary of General Motors, strongly denied that it was culpable for the former supervisor’s actions and said the Justice Department would “end up with egg on its face” with respect to some of its assertions in the suit.
A 21-page indictment returned by a federal grand jury charges Donald Anthony LaRue, a former supervisor at Hughes’ Microelectronic Circuits Division in Newport Beach, with ordering his employees not to follow government test procedures, to falsify documentation to show that electronic components passed tests they had failed and to conduct unauthorized repairs.
Neither LaRue, who retired in 1989, nor his lawyer could be reached for comment.
The indictment alleges that Hughes participated in a conspiracy and made false statements.
But a Hughes attorney said the government has virtually no evidence that Hughes or its executives were involved in a conspiracy with LaRue. “The government will have to make a new law here to get Hughes,” the attorney said.
He described the case as a “real stretch of legal attribution,” the theory that links a corporation to the actions of its management. In most cases, a senior executive must be implicated for the corporation to be held liable, but LaRue was on the lowest wrung of the company’s supervisory structure, the attorney said.
But George Newhouse, an assistant U.S. attorney, said LaRue’s bosses were involved in an effort to harass employees. He added that the actions of any employee of a corporation, even a clerk, can cause it to be held criminally liable.
The electronic components at issue are hybrid circuits, which contain integrated circuits and other components packed inside a sealed metal container the size of a matchbox. The circuits were supposed to be subjected to temperature, vibration, centrifugal force and other tests to ensure they would operate properly in the field.
But starting in 1986, LaRue began ordering the employees to forgo conducting some of the tests or to pass failed parts, the indictment charges.
In December, 1986, the indictment alleges, LaRue altered test documentation to show that two defective hybrids were good and allowed them to be shipped to the Hughes Missile Systems Group in Canoga Park for installation in an AMRAAM missile. The two hybrids were intercepted by federal agents and apparently will be used as evidence against Hughes.
The indictment asserts that LaRue’s supervisors, who were not named, participated in the conspiracy by threatening employees who complained about LaRue.
