Yesterday, Oscar Wyatt, a Texas Oilman and multi-billionair plead guilty to bribing Iraqi officials in exchange for the right to buy oil. The agreement was in violation of the United Nations oil-for-food program.
Wyatt’s plea means the 83 year old tycoon faces 2-3 years in prison (most likely at a Club Fed type facility), as opposed to spending the rest of his life in prison.
I didn’t want to waste any more time at 83-years-old fooling with this,”
Bloomberg News quoted Wyatt saying after the hearing in Manhattan federal court.
“The quicker I get it over with, the better.”
Wyatt’s plea comes a day before federal prosecutors were set to rest their case, and Wyatt’s attorney went on record saying he would not have introduced any witnesses but would have spent his time trying to poke holes in the prosecution’s credibility.
After the plea was reached, Wyatt was allowed to speak with the jurors on how they would have voted. Not a single one said they would have found him innocent.
Iraq’s Oil for Food Program had been plagued with corruption, the program was originally set up to lessen the blow of U.N. sanctions levied on Saddam Hussein after his failed attempt to seize Kuwaiti territory.
More than 2,000 companies paid almost $2 billion in bribes to win contracts those contracts, according to a 2005 inquiry led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. To date, nine people or entities have pleaded guilty or were convicted of charges stemming from a U.S. Justice Department probe.