The conspiracy charge upon which Mr. Blankenship was convicted is a misdemeanor with a maximum prison sentence of one year.
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Atkins said he’s not really any closer to closure about his son Jason’s death, and he fears that with Blankenship’s financial resources, he’ll never spend a day behind bars.
When a federal grand jury indicted him one year ago, the charges also included “lying to the Securities and Exchange Commission about the company’s safety practices and stock purchases”, as NPR’s Howard Berkes reported.
The charges were brought against Blankenship in relation to the April 2010 explosion at Upper Big Branch coal mine in Montcoal, W.Va. Massey Energy owned the mine at the time and Blankenship was its CEO. Thursday, Dec. 3, 2015. Massey polluted the waterways that had sustained Blankenship’s forebears, rained coal dust on the schoolyards where his miners’ children played, and subjected the men he grew up with in southern West Virginia to unsafe working conditions.
Don Blankenship, the former CEO of coal giant Massey Energy, was found guilty of conspiring to commit mine safety violations on Thursday in federal court in Charleston, West Virginia. The jury only found Blankenship guilty of a misdemeanor conspiracy count, however, so Blankenship will instead spend up to one year in prison.
MARRA: The prosecution had tied the felony charges to company generated documents about safety which the defense argued could not be traced to Blankenship himself.
Blankenship was convicted Thursday of conspiring to willfully violate mine safety standards.
“We don’t convict people in this country on the basis of maybes”, said Taylor. “And in this case, it is long overdue”. With this verdict, the state of West Virginia has set precedence and signaled that we will not allow the prioritization of production and profits over the safety of our workers.
The news comes as a relief to Judy Jones Petersen, whose brother was among the 29 men who died in the disaster.
Just a wink, he was asked?
“I was not”, he said, “ordered to do anything by the president of the United States”.
Since Oct. 1, Peterson and a few other relatives of victims have walked through the same Charleston courthouse doors as the man they want imprisoned – sometimes right beside him – without picketing or confrontations. “He was only 25”.
Blankenship is the first mining executive in US history to be charged in connection to the death of a worker.
Labor groups heralded the conviction as a strong message for corporate CEOs.
MARRA: No further charges are expected in the Massey investigation.
Prosecutors contended that Blankenship was a micromanager who meddled in the smallest details at the mine, and cared more about money than safety.
And prosecutors consistently reminded jurors that a conspiracy doesn’t have to be spelled out formally between parties.
Barry Pollack, a white-collar defense attorney for Miller & Chevalier, said the outcome was “clearly a disappointment to the government”, given its investment in the case.
Goodwin said the evidence “overwhelmingly showed an enterprise that embraced safety crimes as a business strategy”.
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(Photo: Twitter/WVHumanities) A memorial stands to commemorate the lost lives of the 29 miners at Upper Big Branch.
