October 02, 2007

Wyatt Admits To Role In Oil-For-Food Scandal

Jurors got a surprise yesterday in the trial of Oscar Wyatt: Well into the third week of testimony, the Texas oil mogul pleaded guilty to charges that he'd paid kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's government.

The octogenarian billionaire accepted a deal of an 18- to 24-month sentence for admitting to one count of wire fraud -- as opposed to the 70-year sentence he would have been handed if found guilty on all five counts. Wyatt had maintained his innocence since he was arrested in Houston two years ago.

"I didn't want to waste any more time at 83 years old fooling with this operation," he said. "The quicker I got it over with, the better."

The U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Michael Garcia, issued a statement saying that Wyatt "traded the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people for the satisfaction of his own greed and the greed of the former government of Iraq."

As part of his guilty plea, Wyatt admitted to funneling $200,000 in kickbacks through an account in Jordan in December 2001 and bribing Iraqi officials to allow him to buy oil off the books, as well as keeping the transactions a secret from the troubled U.N. oil-for-food program begun in 1996. Five other program officials have pleaded guilty and one other has been convicted in related crimes; Wyatt will be sentenced on Nov. 27.

Posted at 7:41 AM
Posted to: Iraq, Middle East, U.N.
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