Stephen Baldwin sued fellow actor Kevin Costner

Stephen Baldwin has sued Kevin Costner over their investments in a device that British Petroleum used in trying to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Baldwin and his friend, Spyridon Contogouris, owned shares in Ocean Therapy Solutions, the company that marketed the centrifuges to British Petroleum. The federal lawsuit filed in New Orleans on Wednesday by Baldwin and a friend claims Costner and a business partner deluded them out of their shares of an $18 million deal for BP to purchase oil separating centrifuges from a company they formed after the April 20 spill.

Kevin Costner and Suttles met at Port Fourchon in June to talk about the plan to use the centrifuges. Baldwin and Contogouris claim they were deliberately excluded from a June 8 meeting between Costner, his business partner Patrick Smith and a BP executive, Doug Stuttles. British Petroleum ordered 32 of the centrifuges and deployed a few of the devices on a barge in June. BP capped the well in July and kept any more oil from leaking  into the Gulf until the gusher was finally sealed in September.

According to the lawsuit, Costner and his partners made it seem as if Costner had already sold his shares in the company when in fact he was still heavily invested.  Baldwin also claims the company misrepresented that there was no deal to sell the contraption to British Petroleum . Baldwin and Contogouris said they didn’t know about the deal when, three days later, they agreed to sell their shares of the company for $1.4 million and $500,000, respectively.Baldwin and his friend say they were entitled to shares of BP’s deposit. Instead, their suit claims Costner and Smith “schemed” to use money from BP’s deposit to buy their shares in the company.