Kurt Mix, a drilling and completions project engineer for BP during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, has become the first employee of the oil company to be arrested. Mix is charged with obstruction of justice and allegedly deleting over 200 text messages from his iPhone pertaining to the explosion and repair of the oil well and rig in what became America's worst offshore oil spill.

Mix was involved with estimating the flow rate of the oil from the ruptured well on the sea floor, and authorities are investigating his involvement with the Top Kill efforts, which pumped heavy mud into the broken well to try to stop the spill. Experts knew that if the oil was spilling out at the rate of 15,000 barrels per day or greater, Top Kill couldn't work, but BP publicly claimed the well was spilling 5,000 barrels per day.

Forensic experts apparently recovered a deleted text from Mix's iPhone from the first day of BP's Top Kill effort saying "Too much flowrate—over 15,000." The texts were allegedly deleted after Mix had been instructed to preserve documentation pertaining to the spill. In a statement, BP would not comment on the case but said it was cooperating with the Justice Department.

If convicted, Mix faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of the two counts with which he's charged.