Former Shell executive gets 18 months

A former Mandeville resident and Shell executive was sentenced to 18 months in jail Wednesday in U.S. District Court for tax evasion and mail fraud.

Gregory Courtney, 50, a former engineer with Shell Deepwater Developments Inc. pleaded guilty to the charges back in January, and on Wednesday he was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt. Besides the 18 months in jail, Courtney was also sentenced to pay back the $1.3 million he defrauded from Shell, plus $486,771 in back taxes he owed to the Internal Revenue Service.

According to U.S. Attorney Jim Letten’s office, Courtney acquired control of Mercury Equipment and Services Inc., a Shell vendor, in 2000. His acquisition of MES was done secretly and was a violation of Shell internal policies. He then had MES send fraudulent invoices to Shell, charging the oil company for a fake maintenance contract for storage boxes on several offshore oil rigs. The contract called for MES to paint, weld and replace the pallet containers. According to Letten, very little, if any maintenance was done on the boxes.

Courtney than diverted $1.3 million from the fraudulent invoices to his personal account by having the checks mailed from Shell to MES. Courtney failed to report the money to the IRS for tax years, 2000, 2002 and 2003.

Courtney was facing a possible 25 years in jail before he was sentenced Wednesday. Engelhardt also said Courtney would be placed on three years of supervised release after he served the 18 months. If Courtney violates the terms of his supervised release, he will face additional time in prison.