A former coal company CEO is going to jail for causing an explosion that killed 29 miners in West Virginia in 2010.
Donald L. Blankenship, 66, former head of Massey Energy, was sentenced to one year in prison on Wednesday for the misdemeanor charge of conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards. It was the maximum prison sentence allowed.
“My main point is wanting to express sorrow to the families and everyone for what happened,” Blankenship told the court before being sentenced. But he later added, “I am not guilty of a crime.”
The sentencing in federal district court in West Virginia comes a day after the six-year anniversary of the explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch Mine, which killed 29 mine workers.
Blankenship also was fined $250,000.
Federal prosecutors had urged the court a week earlier to give the coal tycoon the maximum jail sentence for the crime with the big fine.
