CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - The Latest on former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship (all times local):
4:15 p.m.
Former mine executive Don Blankenship has jumped on Twitter, renewing his feud with U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin on the day Blankenship was to finish a one-year prison sentence arising from a deadly mine explosion.
Even before the U.S. Bureau of Prisons listed Blankenship as leaving a halfway house in Arizona on Wednesday, the ex-Massey Energy CEO rattled off a series of tweets. He took swipes at a federal mine safety agency and Manchin, the senator from West Virginia where the Upper Big Branch mine exploded in 2010.
Blankenship was sentenced last year for a misdemeanor conviction of conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards at Massey’s mine, where 29 workers died.
A Bureau of Prisons spokesman didn’t return requests for comment, and Blankenship was still listed late Wednesday afternoon as being at the halfway house.
Manchin said in a statement that he hopes Blankenship “chooses to do the right thing and disappear from the public eye.”
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4:40 a.m.
Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship is finishing up a one-year federal prison sentence related to the deadliest U.S. mine explosion in four decades.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons website, Blankenship is set to be released Wednesday from a halfway house in Phoenix, Arizona. He must serve one year of supervised release.
Blankenship was sentenced last year for a misdemeanor conviction of conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards at Massey’s Upper Big Branch Mine in southern West Virginia, where 29 workers died in a 2010 explosion.
In January, a three-judge appeals panel affirmed Blankenship’s 2015 conviction.
Blankenship, who’s 67, served most of his sentence at Correctional Institute Taft near Bakersfield, California.
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