Massey foremen plead guilty to charges stemming from W.Va. coal mine fire that killed 2

4 Massey foremen plead guilty in deadly mine fire

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Four men who worked as supervisors at a Massey Energy Co. coal mine where two men died in a conveyer belt fire pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal misdemeanor charges.

Each man admitted during a hearing in Charleston federal court that he failed lead his crew on a required escape drill from Massey’s Aracoma Alma No. 1 mine at various times in 2005 and 2006.

Donald Hagy, Jr., 47, of Gilbert; Terry Shadd, 37, of Chapmanville; Edward R. Ellis, Jr., 38, of Justice; and Michael A. Plumley, 38, of Delbarton, also agreed to give up state-issued certificates to work as underground mine foremen in West Virginia.

Each faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. U.S. District Judge John Copenhaver Jr. ordered the men released on $10,000 bonds until their sentencing hearing Oct. 26.

The charges stem from federal civil and criminal investigations into the Jan. 19, 2006 fire. Miners Don Bragg and Ellery Elvis Hatfield died after getting lost as they tried to flee from the sprawling underground Logan County mine.

Hatfield and Bragg were the only members of Plumley’s crew that didn’t escape.

Ellis offered a partial explanation: pressure from superiors prompted him to claim drills had been conducted in a record book, even though they hadn’t been done. He was not charged with falsifying records.

“They’d say we got somebody coming to look at ‘em, catch your books up,” Ellis told Copenhaver, who did not follow up. “I’m not sure of the date, but I entered it into the book that I had done it, but we hadn’t completed it.”

The skipped safety drills were uncovered after the fire. Civil investigators from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration referred the case to government prosecutors. Their work is now done, said Booth Goodwin, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia.

Last year, the Massey subsidiary that operates the mine, Aracoma Coal Co., paid $4.2 million in criminal fines and civil penalties related to the fire. Former Aracoma foreman David R. Runyon was placed on probation for a year after pleading guilty to failing to conduct a safety drill.

The convictions are the latest trouble for Massey. Federal and state investigators are conducting criminal and civil investigations into an explosion that killed 29 men at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine in Raleigh County. The April 5 explosion was the worst U.S. coal mining disaster in 40 years.

A Massey spokesman had no immediate comment.