BECKLEY, W.Va., Feb. 29 (UPI) -- A former director of security at Massey Energy was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for lying about the 2010 West Virginia coal-mine disaster.
Hughie Elbert Stover, 60, of Clear Fork was sentenced in federal court in Beckley after being convicted of two felony counts of lying to investigators and attempting to destroy evidence in the country's worst coal-mine disaster in four decades, The Charleston Gazette reported.
U.S. District Judge Irene Berger also sentenced Stover to two years of probation and fined him $20,000.
Berger rejected prosecutors' arguments that Stover was responsible for the explosion and deaths of 29 employees at the Upper Big Branch Mine.
"It is a very serious thing to hang death on anyone, and it should only be done when there is evidence to support it," Berger said.
