Former UBB Mine Superintendent To Plead Guilty

• {Beckley, West Virginia}...Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Ruby asked U.S. District Judge Irene Berger in Beckley to schedule a hearing so former Upper Big Branch Mine superintendent 43 year old Gary May can plead guilty after being charged with conspiring to violate mine safety standards and covering up the resulting hazards prior to the April 5, 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners at the Massey Energy operation in Raleigh County. May is accused of taking part in a scheme to provide advance warning of government inspections and then hide or correct violations before federal agents could make it into working sections of the mine. May testified for prosecutors late last month at the sentencing hearing for Hughie Elbert Stover, the former Upper Big Branch security chief who was sentenced to three years in prison after his conviction for lying to Upper Big Branch investigators and trying to destroy evidence about Massey's practice of warning underground workers when government inspectors arrived at the mine.