CHARLESTON- After ten days of deliberations, a partial verdict is reached in the Don Blankenship trial. Jurors did not find Blankenship guilty of a more serious conspiracy charge included in the same count that could have netted five years in prison.
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The jury acquitted Blankenship of the charges of committing stock fraud and lying to securities regulators. While the jury is continuing to deliberate, US attorneys also preemptively filed a motion Wednesday morning asking the court to give the jury a second Allen charge before declaring a mistrial if the jury indicates it is deadlocked again.
“We don’t convict people in this country on the basis of maybes”, lead defense attorney William Taylor said in his closing argument. Had he been convicted on those charges he could have received as much as 30 years in jail. “Though you’re not convicted on all counts, you are convicted”, Judy Jones Petersen, whose brother Dean Jones was killed, was quoted as saying.
After the explosion, an investigation was conducted and many warning signs were found at the site, such as sparking machinery and a buildup of risky gases. During a plea hearing, Hughart implicated Blankenship in the conspiracy to violate safety rules and cover up those violations.
After the 2010 blast caused Massey’s stock to tank, prosecutors alleged in two additional felony counts that Mr. Blankenship lied to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and to investors in a company news release that stated Massey didn’t condone safety violations.
Blankenship, who remains free on bond pending sentencing, plans to appeal, defense attorney Bill Taylor said.
“I was not”, he said, “ordered to do anything by the president of the United States”.
Jurors heard descriptions of Blankenship’s fortune – he was paid almost $18 million in 2009, the last full year before the explosion at the West Virginia mine just about everyone called “UBB” – and they saw documents that portrayed him as a manager with intricate knowledge of the operations of his multibillion-dollar company.
Massey Energy was bought in 2011 by Alpha Natural Resources Inc for about US$7 billion.
“For far too long, West Virginia workers have suffered at the hands of careless employers who are more concerned about making money than they are about the safety and well being of their employees”.
SHIRLEY WHITT: They did say guilty, so he’s not walking away from this.
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The death toll at Upper Big Branch, about 65km south of Charleston, was the highest in a U.S. mine accident since 91 miners were killed in a 1972 fire at an Idaho silver mine. A call made from his office that was secretly recorded said that an internal safety memo should be kept confidential, because it would be bad for the company in the case of a mine fatality, according to the Huffington Post.
