Summary: A lawyer has been indicted for fraud who claimed to represent 40,000 clients in BP spill.
It would have been one of the most extensive client lists ever represented in court: 40,000 clients seeking compensation for BP’s notorious oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Of the lawyers who descended on the area, Mikal C. Watts exceeded all of them in clients represented. But now that is being called into question.
Of the 44,000 clients supposedly represented, 40 percent of the Social Security numbers belong to somebody else, and 5 percent belong to deceased persons.
Of the Social Security numbers that match up, the clients are claiming they did not even know they were signed up.
This is why Watts has been indicted by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Mississippi. He is represented by Robert. B McDuff, and will appear in court sometime next week.
“He believed these clients were real people who had suffered real injury,” said his lawyer. He had been given “inaccurate information,” for some clients. He also said that Watts had “been paid no money in the BP cases.”
“After years of waiting, I will now finally have my day in court,” said Watts in a statement. “I look forward to a speedy trial and the opportunity to prove to a jury that I am not guilty of any crimes.
News Source: NYTimes