First criminal charges brought over Macondo

Former BP Plc engineer Kurt Mix leaves the Federal courthouse in Houston April 24, 2012. Mix is accused of intentionally destroying evidence related to how much oil was spilling from the company's broken well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Ongoing Investigation: Former BP engineer Kurt Mix leaves a courthouse this week after he was charged for allegedly deleting hundreds of text messages related to communication with a BP supervisor.

REUTERS/SCANPIX

By LUKE JOHNSON Houston

 26 April 2012 22:59 GMT

A FORMER engineer with BP has been charged by the US Justice Department for allegedly destroying evidence relating to the Macondo oil spill.

The US supermajor said it is cooperating with the investigation

Authorities arrested 50-year-old Kurt Mix on Tuesday and charged him with two counts of obstruction of justice for allegedly deleting hundreds of text messages with a BP supervisor.

The deleted messages included “sensitive internal BP information collected in real-time” that indicated the top kill efforts to plug the well were failing, the Department of Justice said.

They are the first criminal charges related to the Macondo spill and come more than two years after the Transocean semi-submersible Deepwater Horizon sank, following the BP-operated well…

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