Oklahoma City Thunder part-owner Aubrey McClendon died in a single-vehicle car crash Wednesday, the Oklahoma City Police Department reports. He was 56.
According to the police, McClendon crashed into an embankment at the foot of a bridge while traveling at a "high rate of speed," and seemingly made no attempt to stop.
"He pretty much drove straight into the wall," said OKCPD captain Paco Balderrama, according to CNBC.
McClendon, an energy magnate who owned an estimated 20 percent of the Thunder, had been indicted less than 24 hours before his death, on charges of conspiring to rig bids for the purchase of oil and natural gas leases in northwest Oklahoma.
He was alleged to have worked with an unidentified partner/competitor between 2007 and 2012, deciding in secret which of the two companies would win a bid for a lease on a piece of land for oil and natural gas extraction, with the other company then receiving an interest in the lease. The two companies thus artificially suppressed the price of the leases and drilling rights in the region.
McClendon co-founded Chesapeake Energy Corp., a natural gas company that owns naming rights for the Thunder's home arena. He was forced out of the company in 2013, and sued by Chesapeake in 2015 for using data horded during his time there to make purchases with American Energy Partners, the company he set up immediately after his ouster from Chesapeake.
McClendon was part of the ownership group, led by Clay Bennett, that relocated the Thunder (then the SuperSonics) from Seattle to Oklahoma City in 2008.