Ex-mining CEO won’t have to pay restitution

The convicted former CEO of Massey Energy won’t have to pay millions of dollars in restitution following a mine explosion in 2010, a federal judge ruled. 

 

Judge Irene Berger ruled Monday that Don Blankenship wouldn’t have to pay $28 million in restitution to Alpha Natural Resources, which bought Blankenship’s former company after the explosion, The Associated Press reports. 

 

{mosads}Alpha filed for bankruptcy in August. It bought Massey for $7.1 billion in early 2011, just months after an explosion at West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine killed 29 workers. 

 

Blankenship was convicted of a misdemeanor conspiracy charge related to the explosion in December, a conviction that carries a sentence of up to one year in prison and a $250,000 fine. Prosecutors are urging the judge to give Blankenship the maximum penalty possible; he will be sentenced on Wednesday.

 

The restitution order Monday, though, means he won’t have to pay Alpha for the money it spent on the case. Alpha spent $13.5 million to cooperate with the investigation into the explosion and $4.3 million representing former Massey employees. It spent an additional $10 million on mine safety violation penalties. 

 

Berger decided the company had absorbed those charges more than a year after buying Massey and that Blankenship didn’t need to pay them.

 

His attorneys reportedly asked the judge to dismiss 94 other restitution claims from Massey miners and their families.