WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 -- The U.S. Department of Justice's Environment & Natural Resources Division issued the following news release:
Ronald Dale Koontz, 69, of Hendersonville, Tennessee, Demitrios George Macropoulos, 38, of Buckeye, Arizona, Randy L. Nowland, 67, of Waltonville, Illinois, and Cory Taylor Humphrey, 37, of Prospect, Kentucky, have been charged with multiple crimes related to an underground fire that occurred in the MC#1 Mine in Franklin County, Illinois, in August 2021.
The indictment returned Tuesday charges Koontz, Macropoulos, Nowland, and Humphrey with conspiring to defraud the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) by concealing the fire and other hazards at the mine and taking steps to interfere with MSHA's i...