Feds Make 1st Arrest, Katy Man Held in BP Oil Spill Case

By: Associated Press

Posted: Tue 9:34 PM, Apr 24, 2012

NEW ORLEANS -- A Houston-area man has been arrested after the Justice Department filed the first criminal charges in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

A 50-year-old former BP engineer has been accused of of destroying evidence.

Kurt Mix of Katy was arrested on two counts of obstruction of justice and faced a federal court appearance Tuesday afternoon in Houston.

The BP-leased rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, 2010, killing 11 workers and setting off the nation's worst offshore oil disaster.

Mix is accused of deleting a string of 200 text messages with a BP supervisor in October 2010 over internal information about how efforts to cap the well were failing.

BP officials did not immediately comment Tuesday.

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Feds Make 1st Arrest, Katy Man Held in BP Oil Spill Case

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