Former No 2 Air Force weapons buyer Darleen Druyun was sentenced last year to nine months in prison for negotiating the $250,000-a-year job at Boeing with Sears while she was still overseeing the company's contracts with the Air Force.
It was not immediately clear if Sears' sentencing ends prosecutors' interest in Boeing. US Attorney Paul McNulty was to hold a news conference later on Friday.
In a pre-sentencing filing this week, the government criticised Boeing for appearing to treat the illegal efforts to hire Druyun as "business as usual."
Sears, 57, met Druyun secretly in Orlando, Florida, on October 17, 2002. The next day, Sears reported what he called the "non-meeting" to the three other members of a newly created Office of the Chairman, as well as to James Albaugh, president of Boeing's Integrated Defence Systems business unit.
In an e-mail to his colleagues, Sears discussed a possible $50,000 signing bonus but did not mention by name Druyun, who was still negotiating a $20 billion-plus plan to lease and buy 100 modified Boeing KC-767 aerial refuelling tankers.
Congress scrapped the tanker deal after Druyun admitted at her October 1 sentencing that she had given Boeing favourable treatment as far back as 2000.
Chicago-based Boeing, the No 2 US defence contractor, fired Sears and Druyun in November 2003. Phil Condit resigned as Boeing chairman and chief executive a week later.
Boeing says the few senior Boeing officials who knew Sears was hiring Druyun believed that the two were following the appropriate laws.