FuelFix / Houston Chronicle -- GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — A Texas lawyer, his brother and a second employee of his law firm are among seven people accused of faking more than 40,000 damage claims after the BP oil spill in 2010, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

Other attorneys paid Mikal Watts’ law firm nearly $11 million for shares in his “seafood docket” of claims brought by deckhands on commercial fishing boats, according to the 95-count indictment unsealed Thursday in Gulfport, Mississippi.

The charges of conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, identity theft and aggravated identity theft involve 41 alleged victims, U.S. Attorney Gregory Davis said. He asked anyone else who believed Watts’ law firm claimed falsely to represent them to call a toll-free fraud hotline.

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2015/10/29/texas-lawyer-among-seven-accused...