Well Site Supervisor Sentenced for Lying to BSEE Officials

 

A Houston man was sentenced for making false statements to Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) inspectors in relation to the veracity of blowout preventer testing on an offshore oil and gas platform, the United States Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Louisiana announced.

 

U.S. District Judge Helen G. Berrigan sentenced Race Addington, 49, of Houston, Texas to one year probation and 40 hours of community service.

 

Addington, a well site supervisor for a platform in the Gulf of Mexico, was sentenced for presenting a fabricated blowout preventer pressure test chart to the BSEE inspectors on or about November 28, 2012 with the expectation that it would be a passing test and the inspectors would not find the platform to be in noncompliance for failing to properly test the blowout preventer system.

 

During an investigation of the veracity of the blowout preventer test by BSEE on December 6, 2012, Addington lied and told BSEE investigators that the BSEE inspectors had mistakenly retrieved the wrong pressure chart from the files, when he knew that he had personally presented a fabricated chart to inspectors as the actual test record for the platform’s blowout preventer system.

 

The case was investigated by the Department of Interior-Office of Inspector General (Energy Investigations Unit) with assistance from the Investigations and Review Unit, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and the Environmental Protection Agency-Criminal Investigation Division.  The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Emily K. Greenfield of the United States Attorney’s Office’s National Security Unit.