Massey's Blankenship convicted: UpdateOREANDA-NEWS. December 04, 2015. Former Massey Energy chief executive Don Blankenship has been found guilty of conspiring to violate mine safety standards.

But a federal jury in West Virginia cleared Blankenship of more serious charges of conspiring to defraud the US Mine Safety and Health Administration, securities fraud and making false statements after the April 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine.

Blankenship faces up to one year in prison on the misdemeanor charge of conspiring to willfully violate mandatory mine health and safety standards. He could have been sentenced to up to 30 years if he had been convicted on all counts.

"The verdict is a stunning rejection of the government's heavy-handed and misguided power to prosecute," Blankenship attorney William Taylor of the firm Zuckerman Spaeder said.

Blankenship's attorneys will appeal the conviction.

"The evidence is insufficient to justify conviction on any count."

But US attorney Booth Goodwin classified the jury's verdict as "a landmark" for mine safety that "sends a clear and powerful message: It does not matter who you are, how rich your are, or how powerful you are - if you gamble with the safety of the people who work for you, you will be held accountable."

A sentencing hearing has been tentatively scheduled for 23 March. Blankenship remains free until then under previously set bond conditions.

Jurors deliberated for just over two weeks, after a six-week trial over Blankenship's actions surrounding the Upper Big Branch explosion, which killed 29 miners. The accident also launched a number of changes to federal mine safety oversight.

"Workers in this country have the right to go home safe and healthy at the end of every shift, and the jury clearly recognized the violation of that," US secretary of labor Thomas Perez said. He thanked prosecutors for their work and applauded the Mine Safety and Health Administration and other offices within the Labor Department "for their work on the investigation, and their tireless commitment every day to protecting workers' rights."

None of the charges against Blankenship held him

directly responsible for the accident. Instead, during the trial and in the year leading up to it, prosecutors accused Blankenship of creating a corporate environment that encouraged employees to overlook potential safety hazards in favor of maintaining profitability and production.

The Upper Big Branch mine was sealed after the explosion and Massey was sold to Alpha Natural Resources in 2011.