Ex-Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, is scheduled to report to prison Thursday after being convicted of conspiring to willfully violate mine safety standards at West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch coal mine, which exploded in 2010, killing 29 men.
A federal court has denied an emergency motion filed by attorneys for ex-Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship requesting that he remain free while he appeals his conviction.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the ruling Thursday morning, the same day Blankenship is due to report to start serving his one-year prison sentence. Blankenship’s attorneys have said he was scheduled to go to an unspecified California federal prison.
Blankenship was sentenced April 6 to a year in prison and ordered to pay a $250,000 fine for conspiring to willfully violate mine safety standards at West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch coal mine, which exploded in 2010, killing 29 men.