New Trial For Former BP Engineer Convicted Of Deleting Texts

A new trial was ordered Thursday for a former BP engineer convicted of deleting text messages related to the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Reuters.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval threw out Kurt Mix's obstruction-of-justice conviction, saying that remarks a jury forewoman overheard outside of the courtroom influenced the verdict, Reuters reported.

Prosecutors said Mix, of Katy, Texas, deliberately deleted text messages to and from a supervisor and a BP contractor to stymie a grand jury's investigation of the spill, according to Reuters. Mix, 52 at the time of his conviction, had been set for sentencing in August.

The defense had argued that the forewoman in the December trial told a then-deadlocked jury that she had heard statements affirming her view that Mix was guilty, Reuters reported.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers agreed that other jurors never heard the substance of the forewoman's information because they stopped her before she shared it, but defense lawyer Joan McPhee argued the forewoman communicated to jurors that she had heard information that "affirmed her view that the correct verdict was guilty," according to Reuters.

Prosecutors said there is no evidence the forewoman's information made a difference in the deliberations, Reuters reported.

The subject matter of the deleted texts in question at trial was the amount of oil flowing from the blown-out well.

Mix's attorneys had argued there was ample evidence that Mix shared information about the flow rate throughout the government investigation and that his deletion of the single string of emails fell far short of what is needed for a conviction, according to Reuters.

They also said prosecutors failed to prove that Mix knew the information he deleted would be pertinent to a grand jury investigation - an investigation they said he did not know about and that had not yet even begun, Reuters reported. Prosecutors said there was a great deal of evidence and that Mix knew of the possibility of a grand jury investigation.

The explosion on the BP-operated drilling rig Deepwater Horizon about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast in April 2001 killed 11 workers and set off the nation's worst offshore oil disaster, according to Reuters.

The disaster led to complicated civil litigation expected to last for years, as well as criminal charges against Mix and others, Reuters reported.

BP well site leaders Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine have pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges stemming from the 11 deaths, according to Reuters. Former BP executive David Rainey faces a charge of lying to law enforcement agents in the case.

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