By Amanda Bronstad, The National Law Journal

Hundreds seek to profit from oil-spill settlement.

After the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded four years ago in the Gulf of Mexico, hundreds of South Florida residents paid the nonprofit Noula Inc. $300 each, mostly to process claims for wages they said were lost to the oil spill.But a Miami jury last year agreed with federal prosecutors that the claims were scams. They convicted Noula’s president, Jean Mari Lindor, of 40 counts including identity theft and mail and wire fraud.

“These people would never ­actually see what was filed on their behalf,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald said of Lindor’s victims. “Some had no idea what he was doing.”

Lindor is one of dozens of individuals charged with or convicted of filing fraudulent claims for oil-spill damages. In his case, the government put on evidence that Lindor filed claims using fake tax and employment documents.

BP PLC, which has bankrolled payments to victims, has been more than vocal about what it considers massive fraud in the distribution of claims. In February, it launched a rolling “Fraud Tally” on its Web site, www.thestate­ofthegulf.com, which estimates the total dollar value of claims made by individuals criminally charged with, or convicted of, fraud. As of April 23, that tally totaled more than $9.3 million. (The settlement fund is $9.2 billion.) “While BP remains committed to paying all legitimate claims, the company did not agree to pay for fictitious losses, or for claims that are based on fraud or tainted by corruption,” BP says on its site.

According to BP’s latest numbers, which include both federal and state prosecutions, 136 individuals have been charged and 122 convicted of fraud associated with the spill. It’s unclear from BP’s records whether those numbers overlap.

Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr, in an email to The National Law Journal, said 202 individuals had been charged in an effort led by its Disaster Fraud Task Force, which handles fraud related to disasters. Those numbers include only federal cases. Many defendants have been restaurant and hotel workers who claimed lost wages. Most have pleaded guilty to mail or wire fraud. Their sentences have varied — often a few years of probation, but sometimes prison for more than a year. In nearly every case, judges ordered payment of restitution.

IMAGE: NOULA INC.: The man who operated this South Florida storefront was convicted last year on 40 counts arising from fraudulent claims against the oil company’s $9.2 billion Deepwater Horizon fund. C.M. Guerrero / Miami Herald / MCT via Getty Images

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