CHARLESTON, W.Va — Claiming there was “always a push for production,” former Massey Green Valley group president David Hughart said the company took shortcuts that led to understaffed mines.
Hughart was in his second day of testimony Friday in the trial of former Massey CEO Don Blankenship.
“Sometimes they would take shortcuts to produce coal,” Hughart said.
Such shortcuts, he said, were “not unusual.”
Those comments came at the close of a week that brought t the stand Blankenship’s former executive assistant and a parade of former workers at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, where 29 coal miners were killed in an April 2010 explosion.
Fired a month before the deadly blast, Hughart’s group did not include UBB. However, the U.S government called him to speak to the safety culture within Massey.
If there was a choice between safety and production, Hughart told the jury Friday, production would win out at Massey, no matter the directives illustrated in a series of memos, e-mails and other documents submitted by Blankenship’s defense.
Through cross examination, the defense tried to drive home their claim that Blankenship and other high level Massey executives were involved in and concerned about mine safety using a list of documents that went out to group presidents, including Hughart, addressing proper ventilation, respirable dust, Massey’s hazard elimination program and other safety measures.
“You have to develop a plan to deal with this,” Blankenship wrote in one. “Do your job.”
One of the documents Hughart was asked about Friday was a memo he wrote about his own safety plan to reduce hazards within the Green Valley mines using resources Massey had already made available which, at the time, he said he believed to be sufficient.
On Friday, testimony was permitted about Hughart’s detainment in 2012 for an illegal $4,000 purchase of 120 Opana pills that he made via a confidential informant the day before he met with the U.S. Attorney’s Office as part of the UBB Disaster investigation.
Hughart, who testified he became an addict after a mine injury, was never charged with any drug crimes. Instead, he plead guilty to two mine safety violations in exchange for his cooperation in the Blankenship case and will finish his 42 month sentence this December.
He also has not been charged with multiple schemes to steal money and property during his time with Massey’s Green Valley group.
Blair Brown, one of Blankenship’s defense attorneys, pointed out that the “sole deciders” of whether his cooperation was adequate were Booth Goodwin, U.S. Attorney for West Virginia’s Southern District, and his assistant U.S. attorneys who are prosecuting the Blankenship case.
Hughart was the government’s 12th witness in the trial of Blankenship.
The former CEO is facing three charges of conspiracy to violate mandatory mine safety and health standards, making false statements to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and securities fraud.
Friday was the seventh day of testimony for the trial that began on Oct. 1 with jury selection in front of U.S. District Judge Irene Berger.
Testimony resumes at 9 a.m. Monday.