He was supposed to turn himself in at 11:00. He drove into a concrete wall at 9:00, quite a ways from downtown OKC.
I've seen this narrative on loop that he overpaid lease holders. That is selectively true. After those leases were signed, it's a different story. Check out public filings for all the royalty owners that claimed they were defrauded by his CHK's bogus marketing charges, underpayments, etc. CHK's reputation was probably the worst in the state for royalty treatment and paying vendors. he worked the legislature really hard to prevent the royalty owners from filing class actions, restricted shareholder rights to frustrate accountability and was under tremendous financial stress.
There's no doubt he was gonna have to plea or face a very, very tough case -- my understanding is that the bid rigging was reduced to writing. And why would overpaying for leases in one project excuse bid rigging in another project? There's lots of other examples where he was totally shameless.
All that said, the guy was obviously a force of nature and had lots of admirers. He did some great things for OKC. Condolences to his family.
Incidentally, take a look at the natural gas-powered SUV. That thing went up like a torch - you don't see that with gas or diesel head-ons typically. Are the CNG vehicles more fire prone?
