CHARLESTON, W.Va. — U.S. Senate candidate Don Blankenship’s effort to have his mine safety conviction set aside is unlikely to be resolved before the Republican primary election.
A federal magistrate judge on Monday granted a request by Blankenship’s lawyers for more time to produce a memorandum supporting the former coal executive’s original motion.
The federal magistrate judge ruled that Blankenship’s legal team now has until June 4 to produce the memo.
Lawyers for the federal government then would have 45 days after that to file its answer.
And, after that, Blankenship’s legal team would have another two weeks to respond to what the federal government has said.
Blankenship is part of a crowded field of Republicans running for U.S. Senate. Primary Election Day is May 8. Early voting begins this Wednesday.
Lawyers for Blankenship filed a motion last week to vacate his 2015 misdemeanor conviction on a charge of conspiracy to violate mine safety regulations.
The charges against Blankenship related to his leadership of Massey Energy leading up to the 2010 explosion of the Upper Big Branch mine, which killed 29 workers.
The motion in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, alleges that the prosecution in Blankenship’s case withheld key documents and interviews — “a mountain of undisclosed information.”
“The sheer quantity of withheld information is staggering, and its quality would have made it essential to Mr. Blankenship’s defense,” Blankenship’s lawyers wrote.
The motion was assigned on April 20 to U.S. Magistrate Judge Omar J. Aboulhosn, who is responsible for matters including discovery disputes for the divisions of the federal court system based in Beckley and Bluefield.
Blankenship’s lawyers claim the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating the conduct of prosecutors in the case, especially over the release of memoranda, emails and other documents.
His lawyers say the investigation is likely to add material information to their claim.
In his order, Aboulhosn agreed that argument represented good cause to grant Blankenship’s team additional time to file its memorandum in support of its original motion.
This is the most recent in a long run of Blankenship attempts to clear his name.
While he was serving a year of prison time in Taft, Calif., Blankenship produced and mailed out 250,000 copies of a booklet maintaining his innocence.
He appealed his federal conviction in 2016. Late last year, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up his case.
Blankenship’s misdemeanor conviction was for conspiracy to willfully violate mandatory mine safety and health standards.
He was acquitted of two other charges.
Blankenship was sentenced to the maximum penalty of one year in prison and a $250,000 fine. He also had to serve one year of supervised release, which ends the day after the primary election.
Blankenship is part of a crowded Republican field aiming to knock off Manchin. Among the other Republican candidates are state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Congressman Evan Jenkins.
Blankenship’s participation has drawn scrutiny from Republican leaders nationally.
A political action committee called Mountain Families PAC, with behind-the-scenes backing by national Republicans, is running a campaign titled, “Toxic Politician.” Politico reported that current Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate would prefer Blankenship not carry the GOP banner into November.
During a debate of all the Republican candidates Monday evening in Wheeling, Blankenship was asked to address the fatal explosion and his conviction.
Blankenship told the audience that he was never tried for the explosion. Instead, the charges related to conspiracy to violate mine safety regulations, which had to do with the pattern of how Massey Energy dealt with safety regulations under Blankenship’s leadership.
He told the debate audience, as he has said elsewhere, that he believes “the UBB tragedy and the aftermath is actually going to help me in this election in the coalfields because coal miners know what really happened.”