FILE - In a Sept. 8, 2009, file photo, Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon speaks during the opening of a compressed natural gas filling station in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City police say McClendon,... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In a Sept. 8, 2009, file photo, Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon speaks during the opening of a compressed natural gas filling station in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City police say McClendon,... (Associated Press) 
 
 OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Latest on former Chesapeake Energy Chief Executive Officer Aubrey McClendon, who was killed in a car crash one day after he was indicted by a federal grand jury (all times local): 
 
 4 p.m. 
 
 Police say former Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon wasn't wearing a seat belt when his SUV slammed into a concrete embankment and burst into flames in Oklahoma City, killing him. 
 
 Oklahoma City Police Capt. Paco Balderrama also says McClendon was traveling above the speed limit of 50 mph when his sport utility vehicle crossed the center line and crashed Wednesday. The 56-year-old energy executive and part-owner of the Oklahoma City Thunder NBA team was the only person in the vehicle. 
 
 The crash happened a day after a federal grand jury indicted McClendon for allegedly conspiring to rig bids for oil and natural gas leases in northwest Oklahoma. 
 
 Balderrama says it's too early to tell whether the crash was intentional. He says the state medical examiner's office will determine the cause of death. 
 
 ___ 
 
 3:20 p.m. 
 
 Condolences are pouring in from Oklahoma leaders following the death of energy executive Aubrey McClendon in a single-car crash in Oklahoma City. 
 
 Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett remembered McClendon for his civic pride and his support of local charities, arts and local organizations. 
 
 Energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens described McClendon as "charismatic and a true American entrepreneur." 
 
 Oklahoma State University President Burns Hargis described him as "one of the most visionary and brilliant people I've ever met." 
 
 Members of the Oklahoma House paused their floor session on Wednesday to deliver a prayer for McClendon's family. 
 
 ___ 
 
 3 p.m. 
 
 An Oklahoma City police spokesman says a former energy executive was speeding and "drove straight into the wall" when he was killed in a single-car crash. 
 
 Capt. Paco Balderrama says Aubrey McClendon crossed the center line, drove into a grassy area and crashed into a wall at about 9 a.m. Wednesday. Balderrama says there was "plenty of opportunity" for McClendon to correct himself and get back on the road, but that didn't happen. 
 
 Police are still investigating the single-vehicle crash. 
 
 McClendon was the former chief executive officer of Chesapeake Energy Corp. 
 
 A federal grand jury indicted him Tuesday for allegedly conspiring to rig bids to buy oil and natural gas leases in northwest Oklahoma. A Department of Justice spokesman declined to comment Wednesday on the status of the case. 
 
 ___ 
 
 2:15 p.m. 
 
 Oklahoma City police say Aubrey McClendon, a natural gas industry titan who was indicted on Tuesday by a federal grand jury, has been killed in a fiery single-car crash in Oklahoma City. 
 
 Police Sgt. Ashley Peters says 56-year-old McClendon was the only occupant in the sport utility vehicle when it slammed into a concrete bridge pillar shortly after 9 a.m. Wednesday. 
 
 McClendon's death follows an announcement Tuesday that he had been indicted for allegedly conspiring to rig bids to buy oil and natural gas leases in northwest Oklahoma. 
 
 Police say it's too early to tell if the collision was intentional. 
 
 A part-owner of the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder, McClendon stepped down in 2013 at Chesapeake and founded American Energy Partners, where he was chairman and CEO. ||||| Photo Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 HOUSTON — Aubrey McClendon was the face of the nation’s natural gas boom, a swashbuckling innovator who pioneered a shale revolution. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 He built a fortune as head of Chesapeake Energy, whose embrace of new production techniques unlocked previously untapped deposits and helped wean the United States from ever-increasing dependence on imports. 
 
 But late Tuesday, he was indicted on federal bid-rigging charges accusing him of conspiring to suppress prices for oil and natural gas leases. And on Wednesday morning, he died in a crash in Oklahoma City after his car hit a bridge at high speed. Mr. McClendon, 56, was to have appeared in court later in the day. 
 
 “He was charismatic and a true American entrepreneur,” said T. Boone Pickens, a legendary oilman himself, who knew Mr. McClendon for 25 years. “No individual is without flaws, but his impact on American energy will be long-lasting.” 
 
 Even in a business known for bigger-than-life executives, Mr. McClendon was a mythical character. His interests went far beyond the oil patch, including part ownerships of the Oklahoma City Thunder professional basketball team and a winery in Bordeaux, France. He bragged about his $12 million antique map collection. 
 
 Photo 
 
 In his years at Chesapeake, which he co-founded in 1989, it would become the second-biggest natural gas producer in the United States. Only Exxon Mobil produces more. 
 
 But his spectacular rise was followed by an equally stunning fall with his ouster in 2013. 
 
 And his indictment this week cast a dark shadow over his career. It was served by the Justice Department late Tuesday, accusing Mr. McClendon of orchestrating a conspiracy in which two unidentified companies colluded not to bid against each other for the purchase of several oil and gas leases in northwest Oklahoma between late 2007 and early 2012. 
 
 Under Mr. McClendon’s leadership, Chesapeake was a darling of Wall Street as he acquired leases across the country and liberally employed hydraulic fracturing to unlock vast amounts of natural gas in Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio and Pennsylvania. 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 But Chesapeake and a handful of other companies released so much gas that they glutted the market. Natural gas prices collapsed, pulling down the value of Chesapeake’s shares over the last five years. 
 
 The company’s problems were compounded by revelations that Mr. McClendon had taken a personal stake in Chesapeake wells and then used those investments as collateral for up to $1.1 billion in loans, used mostly to pay his share of the cost of drilling those wells. 
 
 Those revelations ignited a revolt by Chesapeake’s board, and he was forced to leave the company three years ago. 
 
 When Mr. McClendon began quietly acquiring leases around 2005, most energy analysts thought the United States faced a future of gas shortages. Billions of dollars were invested in import terminals that would receive liquefied natural gas from Qatar and other gas-producing countries. But Mr. McClendon’s explorations were so successful that there was no longer any need for imports, and the terminals quickly became virtually unusable. 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 Now, in a once-unthinkable turnabout, some are being converted to export liquefied natural gas. 
 
 Mr. McClendon’s corporate pursuits reflected his eclectic interests. As the company grew from its origins in 1989, he developed a corporate campus in Oklahoma City that looked more like an Ivy League school than a piece of the oil patch, with a cafeteria that served international fare and a gymnasium outfitted like a spa. 
 
 Mr. McClendon dabbled in politics and personally appeared in television commercials promoting the benefits of natural gas as a replacement of coal burning for power. He unsuccessfully pushed for natural gas-fueled cars. 
 
 Aubrey Kerr McClendon, the son of Joe and Carole Kerr McClendon, was born July 14, 1959, in Oklahoma City into a family steeped in the oil industry. His father was a petroleum products salesman. Aubrey McClendon’s lineage also included Oklahoma notables, among them Robert S. Kerr, a former Oklahoma governor and senator and an oilman himself. 
 
 Classmates at Duke University remembered Mr. McClendon, who studied history, for his expansive appetite for reading and for having copies of Businessweek magazine strewn around his room. He graduated in 1981 with a bachelor of arts in history. 
 
 Continue reading the main story The Rise and Fall of a Shale Gas Baron Aubrey McClendon was a natural gas billionaire, a wine collector and a prominent civic force in Oklahoma City. 
 
 It was in college that he met his future financier, Ralph Eads III, an investment banker with Jefferies. Mr. McClendon married his college girlfriend, Kathleen Upton Byrns. In addition to his wife, he is survived by two sons, Will and Jack; a daughter, Callie; and a grandchild. 
 
 As a businessman, he had a reputation for aggressive practices. 
 
 He was once fined $250,000 by the National Basketball Association for bragging that he and his partners did not buy the Seattle SuperSonics to keep the team in Seattle — a statement that was at odds with the N.B.A. commissioner’s intentions. The Sonics moved to Oklahoma City anyway — a far smaller market — for the 2008-9 season. They play in Chesapeake Energy Arena. 
 
 While the indictment did not identify the two companies, most energy experts believe they are Chesapeake and SandRidge Energy, also based in Oklahoma City and formerly led by a onetime partner of Mr. McClendon. The two companies previously disclosed in regulatory documents that they were being investigated by the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. SandRidge had yet to comment on the indictment, while Chesapeake said it was cooperating with the investigation and did not expect to face criminal penalties. 
 
 According to the Antitrust Division, the companies secretly decided who would win leases, and the winning bidder allotted an interest in the leases to the other company. The indictment said that Mr. McClendon instructed his subordinates to conspire with others from the second company to allocate leases among themselves. 
 
 “His actions put company profits ahead of the interests of leaseholders entitled to competitive bids for oil and gas rights on their land,” said William J. Baer, assistant attorney general in the Antitrust Division. “Executives who abuse their positions as leaders of major corporations to organize criminal activity must be held accountable for their actions.” 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 The indictment on Tuesday was filed in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. The Justice Department said this was the first case resulting from a federal antitrust investigation into price-fixing, bid-rigging and other anticompetitive conduct in the oil and natural gas industry. 
 
 At first, Mr. McClendon and his lawyers expressed indignant disagreement with the indictment, although Mr. McClendon did not expressly deny that there had been discussions with a competitor. 
 
 “The charge that has been filed against me today is wrong and unprecedented,” Mr. McClendon said in statement released Tuesday night. “I have been singled out as the only person in the oil and gas industry in over 110 years since the Sherman Act became law to have been accused of this crime in relation to joint bidding on leasehold.” 
 
 Under the federal Sherman antitrust statute, violations carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine. 
 
 The indictment followed a four-year federal investigation that began after Reuters revealed in 2012 that Chesapeake had discussed with Encana, a rival Canadian energy giant, how to suppress land lease prices in Michigan. Last year, Chesapeake settled by agreeing to pay $25 million as compensation to landowners with leases. 
 
 While the police did not characterize the death as a suicide, Capt. Paco Balderrama of the Oklahoma City police said that Mr. McClendon drove “through a grassy area right before colliding into the embankment.” He added, “There was plenty of opportunity for him to correct and get back on the roadway, and that didn’t occur.” Mr. McClendon was not wearing a seatbelt. 
 
 The state medical examiner’s office will determine the cause of death, the police said. 
 
 After his ouster from Chesapeake in 2013, Mr. McClendon quickly turned his attention to his next venture, co-founding American Energy Partners, a private oil company. His goal was to take the fracking revolution worldwide. 
 
 “He was always looking for worlds to conquer,” said Melvin Moran, an Oklahoma oil executive who knew Mr. McClendon for years. “And he did that.” ||||| Aubrey McClendon, the billionaire oilman who was instrumental in launching the U.S. shale energy revolution, died in a car crash in Oklahoma City on Wednesday morning. 
 
 QuickTake Fracking 
 
 His death comes less than one day after McClendon, who was 56 years old, was charged with rigging bids for oil and natural gas leases. 
 
 McClendon drove his 2013 Chevrolet Tahoe “at a high rate of speed” and slammed into a bridge embankment in northeast Oklahoma City, Paco Balderrama of the Oklahoma Police Department said at a press conference. The car burst into flames before responders could pull McClendon’s body from the vehicle, Balderrama said. 
 
 "He pretty much drove straight into the wall," Balderrama said, according to KFOR News Channel 4 in Oklahoma City. "The information out there at the scene is that he went left of center, went through a grassy area right before colliding into the embankment. There was plenty of opportunity for him to correct and get back on the roadway, and that didn’t occur." 
 
 McClendon’s rise in the North American energy arena was rapid. He grew to become a towering figure in the industry, building Chesapeake Energy Corp. from modest beginnings to vast energy empire, thanks to his nimble championing of controversial hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling at a time when larger, more established players were skeptical of shale’s potential. At its height in June, 2008, Chesapeake was valued at $35.6 billion. 
 
 McClendon’s fall from grace was just as swift. The very gas boom he helped create caused prices to crater, reducing the company’s value by more than half within years. A shareholder revolt by Carl Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management Inc.’s O. Mason Hawkins cost the CEO his annual bonus and the chairmanship in 2012, and McClendon agreed to resign in January 2013. 
 
 He was charged Tuesday by a federal grand jury in connection with orchestrating a scheme between two “large oil and gas companies” to not bid against each other for leases in northwest Oklahoma from December 2007 to March 2012, the Justice Department said Tuesday in a statement. McClendon called the charge “wrong and unprecedented” in a statement last night. 
 
 “I’ve known Aubrey McClendon for nearly 25 years. He was a major player in leading the stunning energy renaissance in America. He was charismatic and a true American entrepreneur,” said T. Boone Pickens, chairman of BP Capital LLC. “No individual is without flaws, but his impact on American energy will be long-lasting.” 
 
 Facing Allegations 
 
 Three years after being forced out of Chesapeake Energy Corp., the natural gas company he co-founded, he was facing allegations he worked with an unidentified competitor to keep the price of leasing drilling rights artificially low. 
 
 McClendon was accused of orchestrating a scheme between two “large oil and gas companies” to not bid against each other for leases in northwest Oklahoma from December 2007 to March 2012, the Justice Department said Tuesday in a statement. The charge is “wrong and unprecedented,” McClendon said Tuesday in a separate statement. 
 
 The most important business stories of the day. Get Bloomberg's daily newsletter. 
 
 After his ouster from Chesapeake, McClendon formed American Energy Partners LP and raised more than $10 billion for acquisitions. With financial backing from private-equity heavyweights including First Reserve Corp. and Energy & Minerals Group, controlled by John Raymond, McClendon’s new vehicle amassed drilling rights and exploratory stakes from the Appalachian mountains to Australia and Argentina before commodity prices cut the company’s growth and restricted its access to credit. 
 
 Winning Bids 
 
 The conspirators allegedly decided ahead of time who would win the leases and the winning bidder would then allocate an interest in the leases to the other company, the government said. 
 
 According to the indictment, McClendon was the chief executive officer, president and a director of Company A until at least March 2012. Company B was a corporation with its principal place of business in Oklahoma City, according to the charging document. 
 
 SandRidge Energy Inc. is the unnamed company in the indictment, according to three people familiar with the matter. SandRidge didn’t immediately respond to a voicemail seeking comment. Tom Ward, the CEO of SandRidge during the period covered by the indictment, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment and no one picked up the phone at his office. 
 
 The antitrust law McClendon was accused of violating, the Sherman Act, carried a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and a $1 million fine for individuals, according to the Justice Department statement. 
 
 “I have been singled out as the only person in the oil and gas industry in over 110 years since the Sherman Act became law to have been accused of this crime in relation to joint bidding on leasehold,” McClendon said Tuesday in a statement. “I will fight to prove my innocence and to clear my name.” 
 
 “I’ve known him for many years -- we’ve been friends for a long time,” Charif Souki, former chief executive officer and co-founder of natural gas exporter Cheniere Energy Inc., said in a television interview with Bloomberg Wednesday. “He is probably one of the most important persons in the shale revolution and responsible for what’s happened to the energy situation in the U.S. This is tragic.” ||||| Aubrey K. McClendon has been charged by a federal grand jury with conspiring to rig bids for the purchase of oil and natural gas leases in northwest Oklahoma, the Department of Justice announced today. 
 
 The indictment alleges that McClendon orchestrated a conspiracy between two large oil and gas companies to not bid against each other for the purchase of certain oil and natural gas leases in northwest Oklahoma. During this conspiracy, which ran from December 2007 to March 2012, the conspirators would decide ahead of time who would win the leases. The winning bidder would then allocate an interest in the leases to the other company. McClendon instructed his subordinates to execute the conspiratorial agreement, which included, among other things, withdrawing bids for certain leases and agreeing on the allocation of interests in the leases between the conspiring companies. 
 
 “While serving as CEO of a major oil and gas company, the defendant formed and led a conspiracy to suppress prices paid to leaseholders in northwest Oklahoma,” said Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “His actions put company profits ahead of the interests of leaseholders entitled to competitive bids for oil and gas rights on their land. Executives who abuse their positions as leaders of major corporations to organize criminal activity must be held accountable for their actions.” 
 
 “The FBI is committed to investigating individuals who engage in corrupt criminal conduct,” said Special Agent in Charge Scott L. Cruse of the FBI’s Oklahoma City Division. “We will continue to work with the DOJ Antitrust Division to target those who devise schemes which create an unfair competitive advantage by way of bid rigging or other illegal means.” 
 
 The indictment, filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, alleges that McClendon’s conspiracy affected certain bids for leasehold interests and producing properties in northwest Oklahoma. Leasehold interests give a lessee the right to develop the land and to extract oil and natural gas from the land for a time period typically lasting three to five years. Producing properties are tracts of land where the existing lessee has drilled wells on the land and the wells are producing a stream of oil and/or natural gas. Purchasing a producing property includes not just the underlying leasehold interests to drill on the land, but also the producing wells and infrastructure already on the land. 
 
 Each violation of the Sherman Act carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine for individuals. 
 
 The charges contained in the indictment are allegations and not evidence of guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. 
 
 This is the first case resulting from an ongoing federal antitrust investigation into price fixing, bid rigging and other anticompetitive conduct in the oil and natural gas industry. This investigation is being conducted by the Antitrust Division’s Chicago Office and the FBI’s Oklahoma City Field Office, with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Oklahoma. Anyone with information in connection with this investigation is urged to call the Antitrust Division’s Chicago Office at 312-984-7200, visit www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.html or call the FBI’s Oklahoma City Field Office at 405-290-7770.
– Just a day after being indicted by a federal grand jury over alleged bid rigging, energy tycoon Aubrey McClendon died Wednesday morning in a fiery car wreck that occurred after he "drove straight into [a] wall" in Oklahoma City. Authorities say they need time to determine if the crash—which involved McClendon's SUV crossing the center line, traveling across a grassy area, and slamming into the base of an overpass—was intentional, the AP reports. However, Police Capt. Paco Balderrama says, "There was plenty of opportunity for him to correct and get back on the roadway and that didn't occur." The former CEO of Chesapeake Energy and part owner of the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Per the DOJ, McClendon allegedly orchestrated a conspiracy between two unnamed oil and gas companies in which, rather than bidding against each other, they'd decide ahead of time who would win certain oil and gas leases. "His actions put company profits ahead of the interests of leaseholders entitled to competitive bids for oil and gas rights on their land," a prosecutor said in the DOJ's release. In a Tuesday statement, McClendon claimed he had "been singled out as the only person in the oil and gas industry in over 110 years since the Sherman Act became law to have been accused of this crime" and vowed to fight the charges. Bloomberg reports the 56-year-old faced up to 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine. McClendon, who leaves behind a wife and three children, is being recalled as a fracking pioneer; NPR reports that while most Americans wouldn't know his name, "his impact on his industry, region—and actually, the whole country—was huge." The New York Times shares how T. Boone Pickens, who knew McClendon for 25 years, categorized him: "charismatic … a true American entrepreneur," adding, "No individual is without flaws."