A prominent Houston attorney with a long record of winning  settlements from oil companies says he has new evidence suggesting that  the Deepwater Horizon's top managers knew of problems with the rig  before it exploded last month, causing the [a href="vny!://motherjones.com/category/primary-tags/bp" target="_blank"]worst  oil spill in US history[/a]. 
Tony Buzbee, a lawyer representing 15 rig  workers and dozens of shrimpers, seafood restaurants, and dock workers,  says he has obtained a three-page signed statement from a crew member on  the boat that rescued the burning rig's workers. 
The sailor, who Buzbee  refuses to name for fear of costing him his job, was on the ship's  bridge when Deepwater Horizon installation manager Jimmy Harrell, a top  employee of rig owner Transocean, was speaking with someone in Houston  via satellite phone. Buzbee told [em]Mother Jones[/em] that, according  to this witness account, Harrell was screaming, "Are you f*cking happy?  Are you f*cking happy? The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna  happen." Whoever was on the other end of the line was apparently trying to  calm Harrell down. "I am f*cking calm," he went on, according to Buzbee.  "You realize the rig is burning?"[/p] At that point, the boat's captain asked Harrell to leave the bridge.  It wasn't clear whether Harrell had been talking to Transocean, [a href="vny!://motherjones.com/category/primary-tags/bp" target="_blank"]BP[/a],  or someone else.[/p] "[a href="vny!://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/rigs-fire-i-told-you-was-gonna-happen"]The  rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen[/a]!"