Jury to weigh ex-BP engineer’s case for 2nd day

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A jury will return to a New Orleans courthouse for a second day of deliberations in the trial of a former BP engineer charged with trying to obstruct a federal probe of the company’s 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Jurors deliberated for roughly 90 minutes Monday after hearing closing arguments by Justice Department prosecutors and a lawyer for Kurt Mix, who is charged with two counts of obstruction of justice. Their deliberations are scheduled to resume Tuesday morning.

Prosecutors claim Mix was trying to destroy evidence when he deleted hundreds of text messages to and from a supervisor and a BP contractor. Mix’s lawyers said their client didn’t hide anything from a grand jury that was investigating the spill.