Charges filed against former Boeing employee who was paper's source

Steve Miletich of The Seattle Times reports that a former Boeing employee who was a confidential source for the paper in stories about the company has been charged with downloading and stealing information off its computers that later appeared in the paper.

Miletich wrote, “Police also alleged in charging papers that information in the downloaded documents appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

“Eastman said he did approach a reporter from the Seattle P-I about safety issues at Boeing but that the reporter was not interested. He then contacted Seattle Times reporter Dominic Gates. Eastman would neither confirm nor deny he provided any documents to Gates.

“Suki Dardarian, a Times managing editor, said, ‘The Seattle Times does not comment on who may or may not be a confidential source.’

“David McCumber, managing editor of the Post-Intelligencer, said his newspaper did not receive any documents from Eastman.

“Eastman, an 18-year employee who worked as a quality-control inspector at Boeing, was arrested at work in May 2006, briefly held in the King County Jail and fired about that time.”

Read more here. The charges can be read here.