"Blankenship Guilty of Conspiring To Violate Mine Safety Rules"

"Former Massey Energy Co. chief executive Don Blankenship, once one of the most powerful men in the region’s coal industry, was convicted Thursday by a federal jury of conspiring to violate mine safety and health standards at Massey’s Upper Big Branch Mine, where 29 miners died in an April 2010 explosion.

The federal jury found Blankenship not guilty of two other charges, securities fraud and making false statements, after a landmark trial that lasted more than two months revisited the worst U.S. coal-mining disaster in a generation and closely examined the longstanding argument from Blankenship’s critics that he put coal production and corporate profits ahead of the safety of his company’s miners.

Blankenship faces a maximum of one year in prison — compared to the 30-year maximum sentence had he been convicted on all three charges — but he also could be sentenced to pay fines of up to twice the financial gain resulting from the mine-safety conspiracy."

Ken Ward Jr. reports for the Charleston Gazette-Mail December 3, 2015.

SEE ALSO:

"Former Massey Energy C.E.O. Guilty in Deadly Coal Mine Blast" (New York Times)

"Going Down Noisily: The Rise and Fall of a Coal Tycoon" (Bloomberg)

"Don Blankenship, West Virginia’s “King of Coal,” Is Guilty" (New Yorker)