Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt Jr. was sentenced Tuesday to a year and a day in prison for conspiring to violate the U.N. oil-for-food program.
Wyatt, 83, pleaded guilty last month in federal court in Manhattan to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Under the terms of his plea deal, he could have been sentenced to up to a year behind bars. He also agreed to forfeit $11 million, admitting that he approved a $200,000 illegal payment made directly to an Iraqi bank account in December 2001. Prosecutors said Wyatt paid millions of dollars to Iraqi officials to get an unfair share of contracts connected to the oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003. |