A former BP engineer found guilty of trying to block investigations into the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil disaster has launched a bid for a new trial.
Lawyers for Kurt Mix have asked for a new hearing after contacting jurors over what was said during discussions.
But prosecutors in Louisiana say the defence lawyers have broken the rules regarding interviewing jury members after a trial and have demanded the retrial claim be thrown out.
“Courts have repeatedly disregarded declarations or affidavits concerning alleged juror misconduct when obtained in violation of court order or local rule,” the prosecutors’ said in a court filing at the weekend.
However, lawyers for the 52-year-old, who faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, say the rules apply only to civil cases and they did nothing wrong.
They claim that a juror had told his colleagues in the jury room that ‘powerful, additional proof of Mr. Mix’s guilt that had not formally been allowed into evidence’ but that the juror had since seen.
“It is difficult to imagine a more prejudicial scenario,” Mix’s defence teams said in their filing.
Mix was found guilty last month of one count of obstructing justice by deleting texts messages relating to the Macondo disaster. He is due to be sentenced in March.