Don Blankenship gives a wide smile as he leaves the Robert C. Byrd U.S. Courthouse in Charleston after Thursday’s verdict.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — 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, two-month trial that 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.
“The jury’s verdict sends a clear and powerful message…