The Justice Department today charged three workers involved in BP PLC's Deepwater Horizon disaster with various criminal violations.

The announcement came just hours after BP revealed earlier today that it had reached a $4.5 billion deal with the federal government to resolve both criminal claims and Securities and Exchange Commission charges concerning the April 2010 explosion and resulting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The company said it would plead guilty to 11 felony counts of manslaughter, one misdemeanor count under the Clean Water Act, one misdemeanor count under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and one felony count of obstruction of Congress (Greenwire, Nov. 15).

At a news conference this afternoon, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed that indictments have been unsealed against three individuals: Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine, who were both well site leaders on the Deepwater Horizon rig, and former senior BP executive David Rainey.

The Justice Department had already filed two charges of obstruction of justice against Kurt Mix, a former BP engineer. The government claims Mix, who worked on various efforts to stop the leak, deleted more than 200 relevant text messages on his cellphone (E&ENews PM, April 24).

Kaluza and Vidrine face a 23-count indictment accusing them of 11 counts of involuntary manslaughter, 11 counts of what is known as "seaman's manslaughter" and one count of negligently discharging oil in violation of the Clean Water Act.

"In the face of glaring red flags indicating that the well was not secure, both men allegedly failed to take appropriate action to prevent the blowout," Lanny Breuer, head of DOJ's criminal division, said at today's news conference.

DOJ has accused Rainey of obstruction of Congress and making false statements over his handling of data concerning the flow rate of oil from the damaged well.

"Rainey allegedly cherry-picked pages from documents, withheld other documents altogether, and lied to Congress and others in order to make the spill appear less catastrophic than it was," Breuer said.

BP has yet to resolve civil claims filed by the Justice Department, including allegations of Clean Water Act violations that could be worth billions of dollars in penalties.

Holder conceded the two parties were unable to agree on a way to resolve the civil claims at this point.

"We have not reached a number I consider satisfactory," he said.

He noted that the money BP is paying to resolve the criminal claims cannot be used to offset any future settlement of the civil claims.

Commenting on the earlier announced resolution of the criminal claims against BP in addition to the newly announced charges, Breuer said the disaster "resulted from BP's culture of privileging profit over prudence."

The company, he added, "made a tragic situation worse" when it misled Congress and the public about the flow rate.

"As BP now admits, in responding to Congress, the company lied and withheld documents, in order to make it seem as though less damage was being done to the environment than was actually occurring," Breuer said.