A former BP drilling engineer was found guilty Wednesday of destroying evidence to hinder the federal investigation into BP's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Federal prosecutors said Kurt Mix, who was a BP senior engineer, deleted text messages and voice mails from his cellphone. The messages were about the oil company's attempt to figure out how big the oil spill was, Bloomberg reported.
The 52-year-old was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice. A New Orleans jury found him guilty of one count. U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. scheduled sentencing for March 26. Mix faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the Associated Press reported.
Mix, who did not testify during his trial, declined to give the Associated Press a comment as he left the courthouse.
"I'm only speaking through counsel," he said.
His attorney, Joan McPhee, asked the judge to overturn the guilty verdict.
"We remain as convinced as ever of Kurt Mix's innocence," McPhee told reporters after the verdict. "We intend to continue to fight to ensure justice is done," Bloomberg reported.
The 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill was the largest water-based oil spill in U.S. history. The spill was triggered by the blowout of BP's Macondo deep water well. The blowout led to an explosion that killed 11 workers and caused millions of gallons of oil to spill into the ocean. BP agreed to pay $4 billion to stop the U.S. from investigating the spill.
Mix was involved with the company's efforts to stop the leakage. BP told the public that an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil was spilling out each day. But Mix sent a text to a supervisor saying he thought there was more than 630,000 gallons of oil spilling per day, the AP reported. That message was part of a string of messages that Mix deleted in Oct. 2010. Mix later deleted another incriminating string of messages in Aug. 2011, AP reported.
Bridget Mix, the former engineer's sister, told the AP the verdict was "just unbelievable."
"You can't wrap your head around any of it," she said.
