Texan Pleads Guilty To Oil-For Food Scam
Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt Jr. pleaded guilty Monday to charges that he paid millions of dollars to Iraqi officials to illegally win contracts connected to the United Nations oil-for-food program.
Wyatt told the federal judge in Manhattan that he agreed in December 2001 to advise others to pay a surcharge into an Iraqi account in Jordan in violation of a program rule calling for no direct payments to Iraq.
"I didn't want to waste any more time at 83 years old fooling with this operation," Wyatt said outside court. "The quicker I get it over with the better."
The plea deal calls for Wyatt to be sentenced on Nov. 27 to 18 to 24 months in prison, unless the judge decides otherwise. He also has agreed to forfeit $11 million.
The U.N. oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, was created to help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It allowed the Iraqi government to sell oil in order to buy humanitarian goods. The program was eventually undermined by corruption as Iraqi officials began demanding illegal surcharges in return for oil contracts.
During the trial, prosecutors demonstrated that Wyatt had such a close relationship with Iraq that he was able to meet personally with Saddam in December 1990 to argue for the release of Americans being held as potential shields in the event of a U.S.-Iraq war.
Prosecutors played a tape for the jury of the conversation in which Hussein promised Wyatt that Americans would be released as Wyatt and former Texas Gov. John Connally spoke sympathetically about Iraq's plight.
The government insisted that Wyatt later took advantage of that relationship to secure the first contract under the program and to continue to receive oil deals after other American companies were shut out prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Wyatt's defense lawyers argued that their client was an American hero who never knowingly paid surcharges to the Iraqi government to win oil deals. They also said he tried to play a peaceful role in resolving conflict between the two countries.
In his 1990 talk with Hussein, Wyatt could be heard telling Saddam that he had visited Iraq as many as 40 times in the previous 15 years and that he was "largely responsible" for a lot of the transactions in which Iraqis sold one-third of their oil exports to the United States.
Another Texas oil executive, David Chalmers, the sole shareholder of Bayoil USA Inc. in Houston, pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a scheme to cheat the oil-for-food program out of millions by paying kickbacks to Saddam's regime. Under a plea agreement, prosecutors will recommend a 37- to 46-month term when he is sentenced Nov. 19.
Oil trader Ludmil Dionissiev, 61, of Houston, also entered a guilty plea in August to a charge of smuggling for helping bring Iraqi oil into the United States in January 2001. He faces a 20-year maximum term when he is sentenced on Nov. 19, but sentencing guidelines call for a term of up to six months, said his attorney, David Howard.
Ten people and five companies have been charged so far in connection with the scheme to cheat the UN program of millions that should have been used for humanitarian aid.