
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 20, 1994                   TAG: 9404200112
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

U.S. SUES MINE OWNERS FOR $1.4 MILLION IN COLLAPSE

The federal government has filed a complaint seeking $1.4 million from the owners of a Lee County coal mine where four men died in a 1991 roof collapse.

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Big Stone Gap, is seeking damages against JAD Coal Co. and its owners, Carl McAfee, Julia McAfee and Aubra Paul Dean.

The complaint is an effort to recover civil and criminal judgments that previously were obtained against J&T Coal Inc.

Mine inspectors concluded that a huge section of a J&T mine collapsed and killed four men because of improper mining. A jury later convicted the company of six counts of mine health and safety violations.

The complaint, filed by U.S. Attorney Robert Crouch, alleges that J&T was a dummy corporation set up to shield the McAfees and Dean from the mine safety violations.

''We wouldn't have brought the complaint if we didn't think we had a good case,'' said Rich Lloret, an assistant U.S. attorney.

The mine superintendent, Garry Williams, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $20,000 for mine health and safety violations.

by CNB