Government prosecutors agreed to drop felony obstruction of justice charges against former
On April 24, 2012, Mix was arrested on federal charges of obstruction of justice for deleting three text message strings from his iPhone 3G nearly a year after stopping the BP oil spill, which resulted from the 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Mix, who did not work on the rig nor was he there at the time of the explosion, worked long hours between April and September 2010 in response to the spill. In fact, his efforts helped to execute the relief well that permanently capped the Macondo Well. At the hearing, Judge Duval recognized Mix's efforts as "fastidious" work in the "crucible" of the response effort.
The text strings that led to his arrest were between his sister, his supervisor (John Sprague), and a contractor (Wilson Arabie). Most all of the messages were innocuous, mostly personal in nature, but the government's position was that all BP employees had been informed to keep all 'potentially relevant' materials ... including texts. I would guess that 'potentially relevant' might EXCLUDE texts on yoga lessons and back pain .. but that's just me. Despite having all of those text messages recovered, a Louisiana jury would find him guilty in December 2013 but that verdict was later tossed when it was discovered that a juror had relied on information she overheard outside of the courtroom to convict Mix. The government wanted another chance at a new trial, which was scheduled to begin on November 30. However, this plea agreement came through with Mix admitting that a few of the texts with Arabie may have met the 'potentially relevant' bar set by BP in the midst of the crisis.
Once prosecutors have a case, they seem to grab hold and keep reaching for a conviction even if the case weakens. In Mix's case, the "reach" started early when members of the federal grand jury asked to see the content of the text messages that had been deleted ... none were provided, but that went ahead with the indictment. When it was revealed that Mix had provided over 10,000 pages of information to the government from his work on stopping the spill, something that would go to Mix's position that he was not hiding anything, prosecutors moved to have that information withheld from the jury. When the government interviewed Sprague, one of the recipients of the deleted texts, he told investigators that the messages were just banter among friends ... no cover-up. The details of that interview, at the behest of prosecutors, were not allowed to be submitted. Instead, legal maneuvers meant to get a conviction, or a guilty plea, were used instead of justice or fairness to Mix.
This case should never have never been brought, which is something I have been writing about here since Mix's arrest. This trial has cost millions to prosecute and the result is a misdemeanor? This misdemeanor is the equivalent of a speeding ticket for driving 50 miles per hour in a 45 zone! The criminal justice system would be bankrupt if prosecutors pursued these types of crimes with the same vigor that they had in the Mix case.
So why did the Department of Justice go after Mix so hard? One has to think that the task force mentality that followed the BP spill was not one of finding out if a crime had been committed, but instead finding someone to pin a crime on. Mix fell into the cross hairs of federal prosecutors but he was fortunate enough to have attorneys Aaron Katz and Joan McPhee (Ropes & Gray) on his side. Katz said of the outcome, "The decision by the Department of Justice to dismiss the last remaining obstruction of justice charge is an unambiguous affirmation of Kurt's innocence of the felony charges the the government spent four years and millions or taxpayer dollars pursuing. Kurt is one of the finest human beings I have ever met, and now can now move on with his life." The Mix case should be in the same over-prosecution category as John Yates who was arrested on Sarbanes-Oxley related charges for his destroying undersized fish. Yates was ultimately cleared when his case made it to the Supreme Court (talk about a waste of money).
The prosecutors went too far in pursuing this case, jurors got it wrong and the only way prosecutors saved face was to get this misdemeanor plea from Mix. For his part, Mix worked tirelessly in the middle of one of the worst man-made disasters of our time and was prosecuted by a team of investigators who nailed him more on a technicality than a real crime. It is hard to imagine that this could have ended with Mix serving years in federal prison ... almost impossible to imagine. Even the misdemeanor plea is overkill, but at least Mix and his family can move on with their lives.
The Gulf of Mexico itself is still struggling to recover from the environmental damages done by the spill but much progress has been made. Let's hope that Mix's recovery is a bit better.
