Ex-BP Engineer’s Lawyers to Ask for New Trial

Attorneys for a former BP engineer convicted of trying to obstruct a federal probe of the company’s 2010 Gulf oil spill have asked for more time to file requests for a new trial or a post-verdict acquittal.

On Tuesday, Kurt Mix‘s lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. for a weeklong extension of a Jan. 2 deadline for filing the requests.

On Dec. 18, a jury convicted Mix of obstruction of justice for deleting a string of text messages to and from a BP supervisor. Jurors acquitted him of a second count of the same charge, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Mix worked on BP’s efforts to seal its blown-out Macondo well. Prosecutors said he tried to destroy evidence when he deleted the messages.