Ex-Massey Energy mine boss faces charges in deadly blast

The superintendent of the West Virginia coal mine where an explosion killed 29 men was charged Wednesday with conspiracy to defraud the federal government, becoming the highest-ranking employee to face criminal prosecution in an investigation that appeared to be moving steadily up the corporate ladder.

Former Upper Big Branch mine boss Gary May, 43, of Bloomingrose, W.Va., is named in a federal information, a document that signals a defendant is cooperating with prosecutors. He is the second employee of Massey Energy, the Richmond-based company that owned the mine at the time of the 2010 tragedy, to face prosecution. Massey has since been bought by Alpha Natural Resources.

Reached at his home Wednesday, May declined to comment. A conviction on the federal fraud charge could result in fines and up to five years in prison.

U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin said his investigation of the worst U.S. mine disaster in four decades is "absolutely not" finished, signaling that officials are now exploring possible criminal charges against even higher-level executives of the company. Goodwin did not immediately comment further.

Though other mine disasters have led to criminal charges, they've typically targeted low-ranking employees and have largely been misdemeanor offenses.

"Usually, they get the mine foreman because that's the person that signs the books," said Gary Quarles, whose son, Gary Wayne, died in the explosion. Superintendents are usually shielded, he added.

But Quarles said the charge announced Wednesday suggest prosecutors are looking at May's bosses, too.

"It's about time," he said.

Last week, Goodwin urged a federal judge in Beckley, W.Va., to make an example of the only other person charged so far, former security chief Hughie Elbert Stover. Goodwin is demanding the maximum possible sentence of 25 years in prison for actions he says contributed to the April 2010 disaster.

Stover is to be sentenced Feb. 29 for lying to federal investigators and attempting to destroy documents.

May began working at Upper Big Branch in February 2008 as a mine foreman and was promoted in October 2009 to superintendent. He held that post until the day the mine exploded on April 5, 2010.

The information filed in U.S. District Court in Beckley accuses May of conspiring with others to conceal many dangers through an elaborate scheme that included code words to alert miners underground when inspectors were on the property, the deliberate alteration of approved ventilation plans and the deliberate disabling of a methane gas monitor on the continuous mining machine.

Other employees have told investigators there was never enough fresh air to sweep out the highly explosive methane and coal dust that regularly accumulated — the fuel that three separate investigations have concluded powered the chain-reaction blast.

The information also says that when May knew the Mine Safety and Health Administration was about to sample the level of breathable coal dust in a section of the mine, he surreptitiously redirected additional air to that area to obscure the typical conditions.

May is also accused of falsifying safety inspection books and ordering someone not named in the information to leave out reports of deep water that would have made a section of the mine unsafe.

Clay Mullins worked at Upper Big Branch and lost his brother Rex in the blast, but didn't cross paths with May.

"It's what we wanted. All the families, it's what they want," he said of the charge against the superintendent. "But I want to see some other names. … There were a lot of people involved in this, and I just want to see them be punished for the crimes.

"If they're innocent, then I want them to be found innocent," Mullins said. "But if they're guilty, I want them to face the maximum penalty of law."

The information says Massey subsidiary Performance Coal Co. and its managers routinely violated federal mine-safety laws for fear that violations would cut into production time.