Massey security chief convicted of obstruction

Mining
By The Associated Press on October 27, 2011

The only person prosecuted so far in the worst U.S. coal-mining disaster in decades was convicted Wednesday of lying to investigators probing the 2010 explosion that killed 29 men at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia.

It took jurors about six hours to find the mine's former security chief, Hughie Elbert Stover, guilty on the lying charge and a second count of seeking to destroy of thousands of security-related documents following the explosion.

The jury had begun deliberating Wednesday morning after hearing two days of testimony, in which prosecutors painted Stover as an obstructionist and defense attorneys claimed he was a scapegoat.

Tags: 
coal
Massey
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