Feds: Arch Coal Workers Took $2M in Kickbacks

[hue]

Source: New York Times (AP)

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Arch Coal employees at a West Virginia mine are charged with pocketing almost $2 million from vendors in a pay-to-play kickback scheme, federal prosecutors said Friday.

U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin said the widespread setup required vendors to pay kickbacks to Arch Coal employees to do business with the coal company.

Four employees at Arch Coal's Mountain Laurel mining complex in Logan County are accused of taking kickbacks from 2007 to 2012. Prosecutors said the mine's former general manager, David E. Runyon, was at the center of the setup.

Prosecutors said some companies spent more than $400,000 to maintain lucrative contracts with Arch Coal, one of the biggest coal producers and marketers worldwide.

Ten people in all have been charged, with vendors, contractors and four Arch employees among them. The employees are no longer with the company.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/05/30/us/ap-us-coal-investigation.html?rref=national&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&pgtype=article

[TxVietVet]

1. Why am I not surprised?

[Mnemosyne]

2. Is that the 'clean' coal or the dirty? nt

[paleotn]

4. That's low regulated, free market capitalism...

...it's a lot like coal, if you think about it.

[Mnemosyne]

5. Disgustingly filthy, got it. nt

[kelliekat44]

3. But the miners have been told and that the government is their enemy and mine owners and

managers are only looking out for them.

[Jack Rabbit]

6. The headline is misleading

When it said workers I thought that it meant real, live miners who work for a living. Instead, it just meant the company brass.

[phleshdef]

7. Yup, right in the town where I grew up, I know at least one person on that list personally.

And more than a few are big name Logan county power brokers. This kinda huge corruption crackdown thing seems to happen down there once or twice a decade at the least.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

8. Booth Goodwin is WV's Elliott Ness

He busted the Mingo County corruption ring and he's closing in on Don Blankenship.