Guilty Texan Oscar Wyatt Jr. Among Oil For Food Scammers
Oscar Wyatt Jr., 83, founder and former chairman of Coastal Corp. enters Manhattan federal court in the second week of his trial in this October file photo. LOUIS LANZANO: AP
Texas Oilman Handed Year Prison Term
NEW YORK (AP) — Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt Jr. was sentenced to a year in prison Tuesday for his role in corrupting the U.N. Iraq oil-for-food program, winning leniency from a judge who cited his military service during World War II and his many good deeds during his lifetime.
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin imposed a sentence below the year and a half to two years in prison to which Wyatt had agreed when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy last month. Wyatt also agreed to forfeit $11 million.At trial, the government introduced evidence that Wyatt used an energy company he founded, Coastal Corp., to buy crude oil from Iraq in the decades leading up to the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
After the invasion, Wyatt maintained a close relationship with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to guarantee his continued access to Iraqi oil, prosecutors said.
Wyatt lawyer Gerald Shargel had described his client as an American hero, a self-made businessman who built a successful oil company and helped thousands of people before making “a very, very, very, very regrettable mistake in judgment.”
Shargel said blame for the corrupt oil-for-food-program “can’t be placed solely at the door of Mr. Wyatt.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward O’Callaghan responded by saying Wyatt went to Baghdad in January 2001 and suggested to officials there how they could have a “surcharge scheme without it being obvious.” The prosecutor said Wyatt kept pushing for more oil until February 2003, a month before the U.S. invaded Iraq.
Charged with conspiracy, wire fraud and violating U.S. laws governing dealings with the Iraqi government, Wyatt — three weeks into his trial — pleaded guilty on Oct. 1 to the single conspiracy count.
Prosecutors had alleged Wyatt acceded to the demands of Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization that customers wanting to buy Iraqi crude pay secret surcharges of 10-50 cents per barrel.
In the trial, the government argued Wyatt used a series of front companies, including Cyprus-based Nafta Petroleum Co. and Mednafta Trading Co., to buy Iraqi oil under the Oil-for-Food program and then pay the surcharges demanded into a bank account in Jordan secretly controlled by the Iraqi government.
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Is Oscar Wyatt a friend of the Bush family?
Sphere: Related ContentThere is good reason to believe that George [H. W.] Bush did not first come to Odessa, Texas, in a red Studebaker. One knowledgeable source is the well-known Texas oil man and Bush campaign contributor Oscar Wyatt of Houston. In a recent letter to the Texas Monthly, Wyatt specifies that “when people speak of Mr. Bush’s humble beginnings in the oil industry, it should be noted that he rode down to Texas on Dresser’s private aircraft. He was accompanied by his father, who at that time was one of the directors of Dresser Industries.” “I hate it when people make statements about Mr. Bush’s humble beginnings in the oil industry. It just didn’t happen that way,” writes Mr. Wyatt… Dresser was a Harriman company, and Bush got his start working for one of its subsidiaries. One history of Dresser Industries contains a photograph of George Bush with his parents, wife, and infant son “in front of a Dresser company airplane in West Texas.” … Can this be a photo of Bush’s arrival in Odessa during the summer of 1948? In any case, this most cherished myth of the Bush biographers is very much open to doubt. here…
November 28th, 2007 at 8:59 am
Now if we could only get the rest of the creeps, that would be nice.
November 28th, 2007 at 9:02 am
Oh yeah … one creep at a time.