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Texas oilman pleads not guilty in oilforfood probe { October 28 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Texas oilman pleads not guilty in oil-for-food probe
Larry Neumeister, Associated Press
October 28, 2005
NEW YORK -- Texas oilman Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that he conspired to pay several million dollars in illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime to win contracts through the U.N. oil-for-food program.
His arm in a sling, the 81-year-old former chairman of Coastal Corp. entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Denny Chin set a June 20 trial date. Outside court later, he said he had undergone surgery on his arm, but he declined to comment on the case.
"This is a questionable prosecution,'' said Wyatt's lawyer Richard A. Hibey. "We'll probably be less charitable as things move along, but let's leave it at that for now.''
Two others facing similar charges, David B. Chalmers Jr., sole shareholder of Houston-based Bayoil (USA) Inc., and oil trader Ludmil Dionissiev, a Bulgarian citizen and permanent U.S. resident, also entered not guilty pleas on a rewritten indictment.
All are free on bail.
Paul Shechtman, a lawyer for Chalmers, indicated he would be asking that his client be tried separately from Wyatt.
Though both are Texas oilmen, "they were competitors, not colluders,'' Shechtman said.
David Howard, a lawyer for Dionissiev, said defense lawyers were eager to get records from the United Nations about the oil-for-food program.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward O'Callaghan said prosecutors have not been able to get the U.N. documents and do not believe they have the power to subpoena them.
In December 1996, the first allocation of oil awarded by Iraq under the program went to Wyatt on behalf of Coastal Corp.
Secret payments of millions of dollars to the Iraqi government allegedly began after Coastal representatives were told by Iraqi officials in the fall of 2000 that kickbacks would be required if they were to receive any more allocations of Iraqi oil.
The indictment said Wyatt, who was arrested last week, discussed his participation in the kickback scheme with an oil trader during telephone calls recorded by El Paso Natural Gas, which purchased Coastal Corp. in 2001 for $24 billion.
If convicted of conspiracy and other charges, each defendant could face a maximum of 62 years in prison and a fine of $1 million or twice the gain resulting from the offenses.
Wyatt's plea came on the day U.N. investigators released a report saying about 2,200 companies in the oil-for-food program, including corporations in the United States, France, Germany and Russia, paid a total of $1.8 billion in kickbacks and illicit surcharges to Saddam's government.
The oil-for-food program was one of the world's largest humanitarian aid operations. The program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, allowed Iraq to sell oil provided most of the money went to buy humanitarian goods. It was launched to help ordinary Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
But Saddam, who could choose the buyers of Iraqi oil and the sellers of humanitarian goods, corrupted the program by awarding contracts to — and getting kickbacks from — favored buyers, mostly parties who supported his regime or opposed the sanctions.
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