Ex-coal CEO sentenced to one year in prison for mine disaster

Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship will serve one year in prison and another on supervised release for his role in a deadly underground mine explosion in West Virginia.  

{mosads}U.S. District Judge Irene Berger sentenced Blankenship to one year in prison on Wednesday, six years and one day after the massive explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported. She also fined him $250,000. 

Berger said Blankenship abused his position as CEO of Massey and helped organize the criminal activity that diminished mine safety standards and contributed to the disaster.

Blankenship was convicted in December on one count of conspiracy related to the 2010 explosion, which killed 29 people. 

A federal jury convicted Blankenship after a two-month trial last fall during which prosecutors charged Blankenship with the “cold-blooded decision to gamble with the lives of the men and women who worked for him.”

The jury found Blankenship not guilty on counts of securities fraud and making false statements, charges that could have brought up to 30 years in prison.

In a sentencing memo last week, prosecutors said the one-year maximum sentence was “paltry” compared to the scope of the disaster. 

“The mine safety laws, it is said with good reason, are written in coal miners’ blood,” the attorneys wrote.

Blankenship’s legal team had asked he receive only probation and a fine.

“The defense never contested that Don Blankenship could be blunt and a hard taskmaster, but the truth is that he cares deeply about his family, his community and the people who worked for him,” his lawyer said in his own sentencing memo.

Berger ruled earlier this week that Blankenship won’t have to pay $28 million in restitution payments to the company that bought Massey after the disaster. His attorneys also asked the judge to dismiss 94 other restitution claims from miners and their families.