Free Republic

An American oil worker who was abducted in Yemen in 2017 has been reunited with his family, the White House announced Monday. President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed that Danny Burch, a Texas man who had been captured while living in Yemen, was recovered and reunited with his wife and children after 18 months in captivity. "In 2017, U.S. citizen Danny Burch was taken hostage from Sanaa, Yemen. Today he is safe and secure, and is reunited with his wife and children. " Pompeo said. Trump and the U.S. State Department also thanked the United...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Texas oilman David Chalmers was sentenced to two years in prison on Friday after admitting to paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to Iraq in connection with the U.N. oil-for-food program. Chalmers, 54, and his two corporations, Bayoil Supply and Trading Ltd. and Bayoil USA Inc., were sentenced in federal court in Manhattan. Chalmers also was ordered to forfeit $9 million dollars. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in August, weeks before he was due to go on trial with Texas oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt. Wyatt was sentenced to a...

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...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Texas oilman David Chalmers and two companies he owns pleaded guilty on Friday to paying millions of dollars in secret kickbacks to Iraq in connection with the United Nations oil-for-food program. Chalmers, 53, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, just weeks before he was due to go on trial with Texas oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt. Earlier on Friday, Ludmil Dionissiev, a Bulgarian oil trader based in Houston, pleaded guilty to smuggling. Prosecutors said Dionissiev, 61, worked with Chalmers to buy Iraqi oil for Chalmers' companies -- Bayoil...