Monday, March 28, 2011
EKB Capsule News...West Virginia...3-29-'11
As the anniversary of the April 5, 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine nears, a congressional committee wants to know what's happened in the year since the explosion. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is set to convene in Washington, D.C., at 10:00 A.M. Thursday. Before a U.S. Senate panel on Capitol Hill, MSHA Chief Joe Main, along with Labor Department Assistant Inspector General Elliot Lewis, will testify about what's happened since the explosion. Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, says the explosion highlighted what he calls a dangerous culture of disregard for the law among some operators, but Massey denies any wrongdoing, while the accident remains the target of civil and criminal investigations.
- Thirty-four year old James L. Parsley and 29 year old April Parsley were both arrested Sunday in Gilbert and charged with child neglect resulting in serious injury and three counts of delivering a controlled substance. West Virginia State Police say the couple's 2 year old son swallowed Oxycodone.
- Monday, Joshawa Clark was sentenced to two, 25 year sentences on two counts of armed robbery, and two, one to five year sentences on two counts of conspiracy. Clark was found guilty in February of helping Dustin Shaver commit two robberies at the Marquee Cinemas in Huntington in 2009. The sentences will be served concurrently, making Clark eligible for parole after 12 and a half years. Shaver testified against Clark during the trial as a part of his plea deal.
- Huntington Police arrested 27 year old Candace Lane Davis and charged her with felony child neglect after they were called to Ritter Park Saturday afternoon and found her "passed out" on the steering wheel of her truck with her 11-month-old daughter in a car seat. The officer said when Davis was awakened she had slurred speech and glassy eyes. Davis told police she had taken Suboxone earlier in the day and a Xanax the day before.
- U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in Washington, D.C., has overturned the Interior Department's decision to remove the West Virginia northern flying squirrel from the endangered species list. Five environmental groups sued to restore the animal's protected status in 2009, arguing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to follow its own rules in recommending the delisting of the squirrel that's found only in higher elevation forests of West Virginia and Virginia. Sullivan agreed, saying the agency wrongly ignored two unambiguous rules, but the agency argued it was complying with the intent of rules that had become outdated. Judge Sullivan says ignoring them effectively changed the federal recovery plan for the species without the required public-input process.
- Sixty-two year old Robert Clark of Kanawha County pleaded guilty Monday to being a felon in possession of firearms. Clark admitted to having two firearms in his home on September 21, 2010 after a 1989 conviction for conducting a business enterprise through racketeering activity. Clark faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine when sentenced in June.
- Brent Collins of Charleston is facing kidnapping charges after being accused of punching his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach, while holding her hostage, threatening her and telling her he hoped she lost the baby. The woman told police he barricaded her in their house, disconnected the phone lines and threatened to kill her and her kids if she tried to leave. Police say she managed to get away after Collins fell asleep.
William Lynd and Roger Layman from Chesapeake, Ohio and Christopher Mueller from Huntington, West Virginia were sentenced Monday after pleading guilty in December to stealing more than $100,000 worth of steel from Steel of West Virginia in Huntington, taking it across state lines into Chesapeake, Ohio and selling it for scrap value. The thefts occurred from January 2008 to April 2008, while Lynd worked at Steel of WV. Lynd was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and three years supervised release. Layman was sentenced to one weekend in jail, three years probation and three months of home confinement. Meuller was sentenced to three weekends in jail and five months home confinement. The men will have to pay $110,513 in restitution.
- Massey Energy Co. has been hit with more than 80 citations for safety violations. MSHA said Monday that the Massey citations are among 166 issued at eight mines in five states during special inspections in February. Four Massey mines in West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky accounted for more than half the violations issued nationally. MSHA also cited mines in Alabama and Pennsylvania.
- James Hall, 52, of Mount Gay, in Logan County, has pleaded guilty to distribution of Hydrocodone and conspiracy to distribute marijuana. Hall admitted he sold 56 pills to an informant from June 2009 to August 2010 in exchange for $333 cash and to selling a total of 9 ounces of marijuana to a confidential informant on three separate occasions from June 2009 to August 2009 in exchange for $1085 in cash. Hall faces 15 years in prison and a $750,000 fine when sentenced on July 13th. He also agreed to forfeit $15,000 cash in lieu of his real estate used to facilitate his drug trafficking.
- Investigators say, around 1:00 A.M. Monday morning, a 19 car train carrying about 100 loads of coal derailed near Man while on its way to the Pardee Mine in Logan.
- Kanawha County Circuit Judge Jim Stucky agreed Monday to postpone the trial of 24 year old Zerlinda White of St. Albans to June 6th. White was scheduled to go on trial Monday. She is charged with child abuse resulting in death. Her two-month old son Ayden died last April.
- Four Suddenlink Communications sales workers, who formerly worked for FiberNet, filed a counterclaim Monday, alleging FiberNet forced them to sign an "employee confidentiality and non-solicition agreement," promising not to solicit FiberNet customers for a competitor for a year after leaving FiberNet. The workers say FiberNet has no legal right to enforce the agreements. In a previous lawsuit, FiberNet accused its former workers of "giving erroneous information" and "coaching customers" to switch their accounts to Suddenlink.
- Administrators say the $1 million funding for the West Virginia Prescription Drug Abuse Quitline is expected to run out next year. The program started in 2008 with $1 million derived from a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, the maker of the painkiller OxyContin. Under the program, callers are connected to phone educators at West Virginia University, who direct them to drug treatment centers, educational materials and programs such as Narcotics Anonymous.
- Charleston Mayor Danny Jones says South Charleston plans to take over control of the fire station on Corridor G. The city is still awaiting the results from a study being done by a consultant who is looking into things like staffing and efficiency. Jones says 12 positions would be moved from Charleston to South Charleston's payroll, but there would be no layoffs, no cuts in pay nor any change in service.
A dispute between the Kanawha County Commission and FiberNet last year has resulted in an order from the state Public Service Commission that will require all local telephone landline service providers to file their plans on how they'll notify 911 centers of service outages of 200 lines or more with the PSC. The county commission filed a request with the PSC in October to make those plans available after two FiberNet outages. One of those caused the Charleston Fire Department to loose telephone service with Metro 911 for several hours. When emergency officials tired to contact FiberNet about the problem, they say they couldn't reach anyone with the company to find out what was going on or when service would be restored. The telephone providers have 90 days to submit their plans to the PSC. Currently, Frontier Communication is the only company that has its plan on file with the PSC.
- Keith Gwinn, director of the West Virginia Division of Veterans Affairs, says they are right on schedule to hold the opening ceremony for the new Donal Kinnard Memorial State Veterans Cemetery in southern West Virginia on Veterans Day. Gwinn says they're ahead of schedule on about 75 percent of it, and they should be caught up other 25 percent in a couple of weeks. The $14 million cemetery is on a 100 acre site donated by Dow Chemical just above the State Police Academy in Institute. Most of the money is coming from the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs. It's the largest sum the agency has ever handed out for a state cemetery, and it's the first state veterans cemetery in West Virginia.
# posted by Homer Owens @ 11:04 PM 
