Worker advocates say the recent conviction of Don Blankenship, the former chief executive officer of Massey Energy, gives momentum to a network of grassroots activists who have been pushing for criminal prosecutions of corporate executives.
“It’s a tremendously big deal, and I think it is going to inspire other [prosecutors] to follow suit and look at these cases more aggressively and take much more seriously the prospect of criminal prosecution of individual CEOs and executives,” Robert Weissman, the president of Public Citizen, told Bloomberg BNA Dec. 7.
Blankenship was found guilty Dec. 3 of one misdemeanor count of conspiring to ...