Federal appeals court judges have decided not to shorten the prison sentence of a coal CEO who is serving one year behind bars after a 2010 mine explosion.
Don Blankenship, the former CEO of West Virginia-based Massey Energy, appealed his sentence earlier this year to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia, arguing that the sentence he received from a lower district court in West Virginia was not lawful and should be reversed.
Blankenship’s lawyers had referred to him as a “political prisoner” for supporting Republican candidates over President Obama. But the three-judge panel at the appeals court didn’t see it his way on Thursday.
Blankenship’s lawyers tried to say that his involvement in the 2010 collapse of the Upper Big Branch mine, which killed 29 miners, was mischaracterized by the lower court that sentenced him, and is therefore not legally binding.
The 4th Circuit judges ruled that “the district court committed no reversible error.”
Blankenship, 66, began his one-year sentence for the mine collapse last May and will finish his term at a California penitentiary on May 10. He was in charge of Massey Energy when a series of safety violations were blamed for the mine collapse.
His 2015 conviction by a federal court in West Virginia marked the first time a coal company CEO had been convicted for a workplace crime.
He also was ordered to pay a $250,000 fine. Blankenship was cleared of three felony counts that would have carried substantially more prison time.
