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Texas oilman Wyatt sentenced to year in prison
Tue Nov 27, 2007 3:25pm EST
By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt, 83, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison on Tuesday for conspiracy in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, becoming the most prominent figure jailed over corruption in the program to buy oil from Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

The outspoken self-made oil tycoon was sentenced in Manhattan federal court after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in October, four weeks into his criminal trial and just before prosecutors were to rest their case.

Under his plea agreement, prosecutors dropped four other counts against him, cutting short a trial in which they made a case that he paid secret kickbacks to Saddam's government to win oil contracts from Iraq.

The U.N. program was established to help Iraq sell oil to buy humanitarian supplies while it was otherwise under U.N. sanctions due to its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

But a U.N.-commissioned inquiry headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker found the program was corrupted by 2,200 companies in 66 countries that paid $1.8 billion in kickbacks to Iraqi officials to win supply deals.

At trial, prosecutors said Wyatt was at the forefront of the scheme and presented bank transactions, U.N. records and Iraqi government documents to back their claim that Wyatt paid kickbacks to secure Iraqi oil contracts.

As part of the plea deal, Wyatt admitted he agreed to pay a $200,000 surcharge into an Iraqi account in Jordan and he agreed to forfeit $11 million.