On Wednesday, Donald Blankenship, former CEO of Massey Energy Company, was sentenced to one year in prison for conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards, a misdemeanor charge he was convicted of in December. Massey Energy owned and operated the West Virginia mine where 29 of 31 miners were killed in an explosion in April 2010 – the worst mining disaster in 40 years. US District Judge Irene Berger gave Blankenship the maximum sentence for the misdemeanor, satisfying community members and prosecutors who wanted a message sent to other coal executives regarding the importance of mine safety. Blankenship was sentenced for conspiracy to willfully violate mine health and safety standards after a jury returned a guilty verdict on the federal crime.
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He was acquitted of felonies that could have stretched his sentence to 30 years.
Blankenship spoke briefly and said he wanted to reassure the families of the fallen miners that they were “great guys, great coal miners”.
Bill Taylor, lead attorney for Blankenship, expressed a sense of relief while speaking to media outside of the courthouse following the sentencing.
His attorneys had argued for probation and after the sentence, they promised to appeal.
“We buried our kid because of you”, said Robert Atkins, whose son died in the accident. Broken and clogged water sprayers then allowed what should have been a minor flare-up to become an inferno. “It’s a lot of emotion and that’s understandable”, Blankenship said to reporters. However, the explosion could have been prevented if basic safety practices were in place, according to the Governor’s Independent Investigation Panel’s report released in 2011.
The judge described Blankenship’s rise from a meager, single-mother Appalachian household to one of the wealthiest, most influential figures in the region and in the coal industry.
The pain and anger of people who lost loved ones in the Upper Big Branch mine explosion could not be contained in court. She told Blankenship that “we should be able to tout you as a West Virginia success story….” Hearing the judge say the things that she said – that he was guilty of different things. “The Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General will continue to work with the Mine Safety and Health Administration and our law enforcement partners to investigate criminal worker safety violations that pose a threat to American workers”, John Spratley, Special Agent in Charge of the Philadelphia Regional Office, U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations, said. He also will not have to pay $28 million in restitution to Alpha Natural Resources, the company that bought Massey Energy in 2011.
On Wednesday, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said: “We need to rethink our daily lives: to eat healthily, be physically active and avoid excessive weight gain”.
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Blankenship will not be required to pay restitution to former miners and their family members.
