Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 28, 1994 TAG: 9409280057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
David Lee Goode of Coeburn admitted to U.S. District Judge Samuel Wilson that he did not properly search miners for smoking materials. He also admitted that he falsified record books, saying he had searched the miners.
In return for Goode's guilty plea to those two counts, the government dropped charges that Goode authorized smoking in the mine and that he lied to a federal grand jury.
Three other Southmountain supervisors, as well as the company itself, earlier pleaded guilty to similar federal safety violations that led to a buildup of methane gas at the mine near Norton. Federal investigators say the gas was ignited by a lighter carried into the mine by one of the blast's victims.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Bondurant said Goode not only failed to search the miners for smoking materials, but also that "he himself smoked under ground every day."
Goode, a Southmountain supervisor from November 1991 to June 1992, faces six years in prison and a $350,000 fine, Bondurant said.
Bondurant said Goode had been charged with perjury after he testified before a grand jury in November 1993 that he didn't smoke in the mine.
The federal investigation of Southmountain, which no longer has any active mining operations in the state, will continue; and more indictments could be issued, Bondurant said.
Goode's guilty plea comes less than a week after the families of six of the miners killed filed lawsuits seeking $6 million in damages from Southmountain's parent company, Apple Coal Co.
The suits filed in Wise County Circuit Court say the company should have realized that hazardous conditions existed in the mine.
Keywords:
FATALITY
Memo: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.