Blankenship Gets Year in Prison Over Mine-Safety Conspiracy

Six years after 29 miners were killed in a West Virginia coal dust explosion, the man who ran the mining company like a fiefdom -- a coal baron and power broker who earned millions of dollars a year -- learned Wednesday he’s prison-bound.

Donald Blankenship, who presided over his coalfields from a mountaintop castle, was sentenced Wednesday to a year in prison and a $250,000 fine, the maximum punishment after his misdemeanor conviction for conspiring to flout mine-safety rules. In December he became the first chief executive officer in U.S. history found guilty of a workplace-safety crime, prosecutors said.