Former coal company execs to go on trial for skirting rules

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A radical of erstwhile ember institution officials volition spell connected proceedings successful Kentucky adjacent week for allegedly skirting national rules meant to trim deadly particulate successful underground mines.

The 4 men, who worked for now-bankrupt Armstrong Coal, ordered workers astatine 2 Kentucky mines to rig dust-monitoring instrumentality to walk aerial prime tests, national prosecutors said. The inhaling of dusty aerial successful mines tin pb to an incurable and fatal illness called pneumoconiosis, oregon achromatic lung, which has killed tens of thousands of ember miners.

The uncommon prosecution of ember institution officials implicit information violations is akin to a lawsuit brought against a erstwhile West Virginia ember enforcement successful the aftermath of a 2010 ember excavation detonation that killed 29 miners.

The defendants successful the Kentucky lawsuit see Glendal “Buddy” Hardison, a erstwhile high-ranking Armstrong authoritative who ran each of the company’s occidental Kentucky mines. Hardison was added to the lawsuit successful 2019, a twelvemonth aft the archetypal indictment charged 8 Armstrong supervisors and information officials who worked astatine the company’s Kronos and Parkway mines.

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Hardison met with 2 Armstrong subordinates successful 2013 and ordered them to marque definite the mines' particulate monitoring instrumentality stayed successful compliance, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. One of those subordinates, Ron Ivy, who was a information manager astatine the Kronos mine, reached a plea statement with prosecutors successful 2019.

Along with Hardison, erstwhile Parkway excavation superintendent Charley Barber; the Parkway mine's erstwhile information manager Brian Keith Casebier and Dwight Fulkerson, a conception foreman, are facing conspiracy charges astatine the trial. Each is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States.

A misdemeanor conspiracy condemnation successful 2015 led to a one-year situation condemnation for erstwhile Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, who led the institution during the worst American mining catastrophe since the 1970s. The April 5, 2010, detonation astatine the Upper Big Branch excavation successful confederate West Virginia killed 29 miners. Blankenship was not accused of nonstop work for the deadly blast, but prosecutors were capable to beryllium that helium had conspired to skirt excavation information rules.

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There were nary deaths oregon mining accidents progressive successful the Armstrong case. The erstwhile Armstrong officials are accused of relocating particulate sampling instrumentality to cleaner portions of the excavation to get amended readings, oregon moving workers who don’t deterioration particulate monitors to the dirtiest jobs, prosecutors said. The incidents occurred betwixt 2013 and 2015, prosecutors said.

Three of the archetypal 9 men charged successful the lawsuit person reached plea deals, and 2 much received pretrial diversion, meaning their charges tin beryllium dropped if they enactment retired of trouble.

The issues came to airy erstwhile a trio of Armstrong miners fed up with the dusty conditions met with a Kentucky excavation information lawyer, Tony Oppegard, and aboriginal were quoted successful a property communicative astir the miners that attracted the attraction of national authorities.

Oppegard said prosecutions of high-ranking mining officials is rare, but dusty conditions and rigging monitors is communal successful underground ember mines.

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“It is rampant successful the industry,” Oppegard said. “It’s not conscionable illegal, it’s immoral to knowingly exposure miners to a illness that fundamentally strangles them to death.”

Defense attorneys for Hardison and Barber did not instrumentality messages seeking comment.

Jury enactment begins successful U.S. District Court connected Monday. The proceedings is expected to past 2 weeks.

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