Escort Agency Gets Money from BP Oil Spill Claims

Court approved $173,000

BP has complained for months it has been forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to businesses that filed damage claims after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster – even though they weren't really affected. Now the court-appointed lawyer supervising those payments has confirmed he approved a $173,000 payout to an "adult escort service," that BP says was filed with unsigned and undated tax returns.

A new BP ad appeared in several national newspapers on Thursday proclaiming: "The IRS wouldn't accept this claim. But the Gulf Settlement Program did."

BP said the missing signatures and dates on the escort service's forms were obvious red flags, but Deepwater Horizon Claims Administrator Patrick A. Juneau said the escort service claim was real – and thoroughly reviewed.