Donald Blankenship, the former coal baron looking at up to a year in prison for flouting mine-safety rules, may be facing an even bigger penalty: $28 million in restitution tied to a fatal explosion six years ago.
Alpha Natural Resources Inc. asked a federal judge in West Virginia to order Blankenship to pay legal expenses and fines stemming from the 2010 Upper Big Branch mine blast, which killed 29 workers. At the time of the incident, Blankenship was chief executive officer of Massey Energy, owner of the mine. Alpha bought Massey in 2011.
Jurors in Charleston, West Virginia, convicted Blankenship in December of a misdemeanor conspiracy charge of ignoring safety standards.
While federal prosecutors are backing Alpha’s request, Blankenship is fighting it.
“This is an unprecedented attempt to add Draconian penalties to an offense that Congress has classified as a misdemeanor, and Alpha has no right to recover any of these expenditures from Mr. Blankenship,” the former executive’s lawyers said in a March 7 court filing.
Steve Hawkins, a spokesman for Bristol, Virginia-based Alpha, declined to comment Tuesday on the restitution request.
Jurors concluded that Blankenship orchestrated a conspiracy to ignore mine-safety standards to speed up coal production. The verdict was a rare instance of the U.S. holding a chief executive accountable for fatalities in the workplace. Blankenship, who was acquitted of two counts of securities fraud, has vowed to appeal the conviction.
He’s slated to be sentenced April 6 by U.S. District Judge Irene Berger and faces a maximum sentence of a year in jail plus a fine. He contends the fine is capped at $250,000, but the government says Berger can rely on a law that sets the criminal penalty based on twice the financial gain or loss generated by the conspiracy.
