Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 9, 1994 TAG: 9408090088
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Paul Douglas Ramey of Clintwood was scheduled for a federal jury trial in Abingdon today, but his attorney, Frederick Adkins, said Monday that a plea agreement had been reached with federal prosecutors.
Assuming the judge accepts the plea agreement, Ramey will be the first Southmountain Coal Co. official convicted as a result of a federal investigation of the fatal mine blast.
Southmountain's No. 3 mine in Wise County exploded in December 1992 after one of the victims fired up a cigarette lighter and ignited a buildup of methane gas, according to mine investigation reports.
Ramey was charged in a three-count indictment in May with allowing miners to smoke in the mine and with conducting bogus searches for smoking materials, which are illegal even to possess in underground mines.
The Clintwood man was also charged with roof control violations, but federal prosecutors have agreed to drop that charge if Ramey pleads guilty to the two smoking counts.
Ramey faces up to two years in prison and a $200,000 fine, said Thomas Bondurant, assistant U.S. attorney.
Adkins pointed out that Ramey was the mine's day foreman and that the fatal blast didn't happen on his shift.
A January indictment alleged that the coal company and two of its supervisors - Freddie Carl Detherage and Kenneth Ray Brooks - repeatedly violated laws that would have prevented the buildup of methane gas and that the company falsified records to cover up the violations.
In May, a grand jury in Abingdon charged that Southmountain bosses not only knew miners would smoke illegally in the mine, but that the bosses also would light up there.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.