Mine security chief faces federal charges

CHARLESTON, W.Va., Feb. 28 (UPI) -- A West Virginia mine security chief was charged Monday with obstruction and lying in the federal probe of a Massey Energy Co. mine disaster, officials said.

Hughie E. Stover, 60, of Clear Fork was charged with two felonies -- making false statements to federal agents and obstructing a federal investigation -- in the probe of events at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine, where 29 miners died in an explosion last April, the Justice Department said in a release.

The indictment released in Charleston said Stover -- security chief of Massey Energy Co.'s Upper Big Branch mine -- lied to an FBI special agent and a special investigator for the Mine Safety and Health Administration looking into allegations that security guards at Upper Big Branch routinely notified mine personnel when MHSA inspectors arrived. Stover falsely denied the existence of such a practice and told investigators he would have fired any security guard who provided advance notice, the indictment alleges.

The indictment claims Stover instructed the security guards to notify mine personnel whenever MSHA inspectors arrived at the mine.

The indictment also claims Stover was involved in disposing of thousands of pages of security-related documents stored in a Massey building near the mine, with the intent to impede the federal investigation, the Justice Department said.

"The conduct charged by the grand jury -- obstruction of justice and false statements to federal investigators -- threatens our effort to find out what happened at Upper Big Branch," U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin said. "With 29 coal miners lost and thousands more waiting for answers about what caused the disaster, this inquiry is simply too important to tolerate any attempt to hinder it."