Guilty verdict returned in first of four trials of BP personnel charged with crimes related to April 2010 US Gulf oil spill

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Deleted hundreds of text messages in October 2010 and August 2011 related to April 2010 event.

12/18/13, "Gulf Spill: Ex-BP Engineer Destroyed Evidence," Sky News

"A jury returns a guilty verdict in the first criminal trial produced by the Justice Department's probe of the 2010 Gulf oil spill."

"A former BP drilling engineer has been found guilty of deleting text messages to obstruct an investigation of the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Kurt Mix faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for obstruction of justice in the Deepwater Horizon spill. Mix, who was acquitted of a second charge, was released from custody on his present bond.

Sentencing was scheduled for March 26. Mix hugged his friends and family members in the courtroom before leaving hurriedly, getting on an elevator and leaving the courthouse.

"I'm only going to speak through counsel," he responded to questions.

Prosecutors argued that Mix, 52, was trying to destroy evidence when he deleted hundreds of text messages to and from a supervisor and a BP contractor.

Mix's lawyers claimed their client did not hide anything, saying he preserved other records containing the same information contained in the deleted messages.

Mix, who did not testify at his two-week trial, was >one of four current or former BP employees charged with crimes related to the spill. His case was the first to be tried.

The April 20, 2010, blowout of BP's Macondo well triggered an explosion that killed 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and spawned the nation's worst offshore oil spill. Millions of gallons of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico while the company scrambled for weeks to seal the well.

Mix was on a team of experts who worked on BP's unsuccessful attempt to stop the gusher using a technique called "top kill".

On May 26, 2010, the day that top kill began, Mix estimated in a text to a supervisor that more than 630,000 gallons of oil per day were spilling - three times BP's public estimate of 210,000 gallons daily and a rate far greater than what top kill could handle.

That text was in a string of messages that Mix exchanged with his supervisor, Jonathan Sprague, before deleting it in October 2010.

In August 2011, Mix also deleted a string of text messages that he exchanged with BP contractor Wilson Arabie."


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