Mississippi Man Indicted for Alleged Oil Spill Fraud

A Columbia, Miss., man is under federal indictment for allegedly filing $10,000 worth of false claims for Deepwater Horizon oil spill relief funding.

The Clarion-Ledger reports Jermaine Ball is charged with a separate felony for each of the $5,000 checks he received under what prosecutors claim were false pretenses. A federal grand jury indicted him Aug. 7, according to U.S. District Court documents.

After the April 2010 explosion of the BP-leased rig Deepwater Horizon and subsequent oil spill, the oil company established the Gulf Coast Claims Facility to process claims for damages resulting from the spill.

The indictment accuses Ball of devising a scheme to defraud the claims system.

According to the indictment, Ball allegedly claimed losses from employment at the Louisiana Seafood Exchange because of the spill.

The indictment says Ball in fact suffered no loss of income.

The Deepwater Horizon was working about 50 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River when it exploded the night of April 20, 2010, killing 11 workers and setting off the nation’s worst offshore oil disaster.