Grand Jury Indicts Former BP Engineer for Destroying Deepwater Horizon Evidence
Susanne Posel
Kurt Mix, former engineer for British Petroleum (BP) has been charged with 2 counts of obstructing justice in 2012 for allegedly deleting text messages and voicemails from his cell phone that were pertaining to the size and severity of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
It is alleged that Mix admitted in one of the text messages that the spill was much bigger than BP was acknowledging in the media. Prosecutors have maintained that Mix did this deliberately with the intent of thwarting the grand jury as they investigated the cause of the spill.
Mix has pleaded not guilty to the charges and denied destroying evidence. The charges against Mix bring a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
This past summer, Halliburton admitted that they intentionally destroyed evidence with regard to the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico under a guilty plea to criminal charges. The Department of Justice (DoJ) has asserted that Halliburton will cooperate with investigations into the explosion in 2010 that killed 11 workers on a drilling platform and dumped massive amounts of petrol into the Gulf.
Halliburton released a statement that “announced that it has reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to conclude the department’s criminal investigation of the company in relation to the April 20, 2010 incident involving the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico. A Halliburton subsidiary has agreed to plead guilty to one misdemeanor violation associated with the deletion of records created after the Macondo well incident, to pay the statutory maximum fine of $200,000 and to accept a term of three years’ probation.”
In return for Halliburton’s participation, the DoJ has “has agreed that it will not pursue further criminal prosecution of the company or its subsidiaries for any conduct relating to or arising out of the Macondo well incident.”
Edward Sherman, a law professor at Tulane University explains that Halliburton’s negotiations with the DoJ would be a precursor to out-of-court settlements. Shareman said: “Their willingness to plead to this may also indicate that they’d like to settle up with the federal government on the civil penalties. It may indicate a softening of their position.”
Halliburton has given $65 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Service (NFWS) in what is being reported as a voluntary measure.
However, the NFWS is connected through special agents to the Deepwater Horizon Criminal Task Force (DHCTF) that “investigate criminal wrongdoing in connection with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill since that disaster occurred in late April 2010.”
In essence, Halliburton bribed the DHCTF to ensure that the DoJ and other federal law enforcement agencies would not further criminal charges against them.
Susanne Posel, Occupy Corporatism - Edt. Ch/L-nsnbc17.12.2013