Lawyer Accused of Fraud By U.S. in BP Oil Spill Case is Acquitted
Reuters is reporting that prominent Texas lawyer Mikal Watts was acquitted on Thursday of charges he made up thousands of fake clients to sue BP Plc for damages that the oil company caused in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill, court records show.
A Mississippi federal jury found Watts and four other defendants not guilty of charges related to an alleged scheme to defraud a program set up by BP to compensate people who suffered economic losses from the spill, writes Jonathan Stempel. The jury found two other defendants guilty.
“The U.S. Department of Justice had accused the defendants of submitting claims on behalf of more than 40,000 people who had not agreed to be represented by Watts’ firm, or else were identified with stolen or bogus Social Security numbers and other personal information,” reports Stempel.
