The U.S. Justice Department will charge Boeing Co. with criminal fraud, leaving the planemaker to choose between pleading guilty or taking the risk of going to trial, according to people familiar with the matter.

Boeing has until the end of the week to decide whether to plead guilty to the charge, the department told the families of victims of two fatal 737 Max crashes and their attorneys in a meeting Sunday, according to the people who asked not to be named discussing a confidential matter.

The department will inform Boeing it will have to pay an additional criminal fine of $243.6 million on top of the $243.6 million already paid with a 2021 deferred-prosecution agreement, bringing the total amount of fine close to $500 million, according to two of the people. The company will also have to hire a corporate monitor for three years, they said.

Officials from the Justice Department’s fraud section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas attended the Sunday meeting, according to an email seen by Bloomberg.

Paul Cassell, an attorney representing the crash victims’ families, called the offer the department plans to make to Boeing a “sweetheart plea deal.”

“The deal will not acknowledge, in any way, that Boeing’s crime killed 346 people,” he said in an email. “The families will strenuously object to this plea deal.”

The fine the department will seek falls far short of a nearly $25 billion fine the families requested — with the possibility of suspending $14 billion to $22 billion of that if Boeing devotes those funds to an independent corporate monitor and improvements to its safety programs.

The Justice Department declined to comment. Boeing declined to comment.

Bloomberg previously reported that the planemaker is in talks with the department to resolve potential charges stemming from the crashes, and that a settlement is expected to include the appointment of a corporate monitor.

A guilty plea to criminal charges would mark a low point in Boeing’s century-long history and a stunning development for a company that was once renowned for its cautious, straight-laced culture. It raises concerns over U.S. government contracts for the company at a time when Boeing needs its defense division to counteract plunging revenue at its commercial airplane business.

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