Donald Blankenship Sentenced to a Year in Prison in Mine Safety Case

[elljay]

Last edited Wed Apr 6, 2016, 01:30 PM - Edit history (2)

Source: New York Times

(SNIP).
The sentencing, in Federal District Court here, came six years and one day after an explosion tore through Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine, killing 29 people. Although Mr. Blankenship was not accused of direct responsibility for the accident, the deadliest in American coal mining in about 40 years, the disaster prompted the federal inquiry that led to Mr. Blankenship’s indictment.

In addition to the year in jail, Mr. Blankenship was fined $250,000 and is subject to a year of supervised release. (SNIP)


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/us/donald-blankenship-sentenced-to-a-year-in-prison-in-mine-safety-case.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

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It is unbelievable that the maximum sentence that could be obtained for the deaths of 29 people is one year, and that this is considered to be exceptional in West Virginia. However, in case anyone was worried that a wealthy man like Blankenship would actually have to go to jail with the common people, he is appealing the sentence and asking for probation.

We shall see whether he actually serves a single day for this horrible crime.

[salinsky]

1. I'm glad he's going to prison ...

... but he should really never again be allowed to see daylight.

[Uponthegears]

2. Like the miners

whose deaths lie at his feet.

[KamaAina]

3. I hear priwon can be pretty harsh in WV

[Botany]

4. fuck him

The man should be in prisomn for the rest of his life.

The attention to detail that made Blankenship such an effective bean counter may also be his undoing. He constantly monitored every inch of his operation and wrote memos instructing subordinates to move coal at all costs. "I could Krushchev you," he warned in a handwritten memo to one Massey official whose facilities Blankenship thought were underperforming. He called another mine manager "literally crazy" and "ridiculous" for devoting too many of his miners to safety projects. Despite repeated citations by the MSHA, Blankenship instructed Massey executives to postpone safety improvements: "We'll worry about ventilation or other issues at an appropriate time. Now is not the time." And this is only what investigators gleaned from the documents they could find: Hughie Stover, Blankenship's bodyguard and personal driver—and the head of security at Upper Big Branch—ordered a subordinate to destroy thousands of pages of documents, while the government's investigation was ongoing. (Stover was sentenced to three years in prison in 2012 for lying to federal investigators and attempting to destroy evidence.)

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/04/don-blankenship-sentenced-prison-west-virginia

[tabasco]

5. Convicted of a misdemeanor.

If he'd had a pot plant in his closet, he would be a felon.

Conspire to break safety laws & people get killed = misdemeanor.

Pot plant in closet = felony.

Anyone who says we have a fair and rational justice system in America is insane or extremely stupid.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

6. Blankenship gets maximum sentence: One year in prison, $250,000 fine

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Blankenship gets maximum sentence: One year in prison, $250,000 fine

By Ken Ward Jr., Staff Writer



F. BRIAN FERGUSON | Gazette-MailFormer Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship makes his way into the Robert C. Byrd U.S. Courthouse for his sentencing on Wednesday morning.

A judge today ordered Don Blankenship, the former Massey Energy CEO, to serve one year in prison and pay a $250,000 fine, the maximum penalty allowed for his conviction for conspiring to violate federal mine safety and health standards at the Upper Big Branch Mine, where 29 miners died in a massive underground explosion.

U.S. District Judge Irene Berger also sentenced Blankenship to serve one year on supervised release, or probation, during a hearing held six years and one day after the Upper Big Branch explosion prompted an aggressive federal investigation of the mine disaster and Massey’s business and safety practices under Blankenship’s hands-on leadership.
....

Berger earlier this week threw out a request from Alpha Natural Resources and federal prosecutors that Blankenship be forced to pay Alpha nearly $28 million in restitution to cover Alpha’s costs in cooperating with the federal probe and paying fines related to the Upper Big Branch Mine’s violations. Alpha bought Massey in June 2011, a little more than a year after the mine disaster. Blankenship had retired in December 2010, taking with him a $12 million golden parachute.

Blankenship, who turned 66 last month, was not charged with causing the Raleigh County mine disaster, but the allegations against him and the crime he was convicted of focused on repeated violations of basic safety standards — mine ventilation, roof support and dust control ­— known for decades to be effective in preventing mine explosions.
....

Staff writers David Gutman and Kate White contributed to this report. Reach Ken Ward Jr. at [e-mail], 304-348-1702 or follow @kenwardjr on Twitter.

[Javaman]

7. gee, a whole year! that's hard luck!

[Judi Lynn]

8. Hope he can't slime out of the sentence, and every day will seem like a lifetime. n/t

[dhill926]

9. I sincerely and unequivocally....

hope it goes very bad for him...fucker...

[A Little Weird]

10. I really hope they don't give probation

A year isn't long enough - they should at least make him serve every minute of it.

[TexasBushwhacker]

11. He got the maximum for the charge

However, I'm sure he will be a pauper when all the wrongful death lawsuits are over

[silvershadow]

12. A year huh? I guess it is better than nothing, but... nt