Prior to his death, whistleblower John Barnett was testifying against Boeing over concerns about standards.

John Barnett had worked for Boeing for 32 years, until his retirement in 2017.

In the days before his death, he had been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company.

Boeing said it was saddened to hear of Mr Barnett’s passing. The Charleston County coroner confirmed his death to the BBC on Monday.

It said the 62-year-old had died from a “self-inflicted” wound on 9 March and police were investigating.

    • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
      29·
      8 months ago

      Yes the FBI wanted to make an example out of him for the crime of downloading research papers from a service he had legitimate access to. Even JSTOR thought the prosecution was absurd and didn’t want anything to do with it.

      • mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world
        10·
        8 months ago

        I’m fully expecting to learn in a decade or so that spez was behind it using his family connections to push out the one person dedicated to keeping reddit from becoming a profit machine.