Ex-Massey mine security chief sentenced to prison [View all]
Last edited Thu Mar 1, 2012, 01:27 PM - Edit history (1)
The former security chief at a West Virginia coal mine where 29 workers were killed in a 2010 accident was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in prison for lying to federal agents and obstructing an investigation.
Hughie Elbert Stover of Clear Fork, West Virginia, had faced a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison after being convicted last October of making false statements to FBI and Mine Safety and Health Administration investigators and obstructing the federal probe into the cause of the Upper Big Branch disaster.
An explosion at the mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, which was owned by now-defunct Massey Energy, killed 29 miners in April 2010. It was the worst accident in the US mining industry in four decades.
"Today's sentence sends a clear message that when a person obstructs an investigation - especially an investigation as critical as UBB - there will be consequences," US Attorney Booth Goodwin said in a statement.
http://www.miningweekly.com/article/ex-massey-mine-security-chief-sentenced-to-prison-2012-03-01
= new reply since forum marked as read