Federal officials have arrested the security chief of Massey Energy Co.'s (MEE) Upper Big Branch mine and charged him with two felonies as part of their investigation into an explosion that killed 29 workers at the mine last year.

Federal officials allege that 60-year-old Hughie Elbert Stover of Clear Fork, W.Va., tried to block their investigation by directing an individual to dispose of thousands of pages of security-related documents stored in a building near the mine, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Officials also allege Stover instructed security guards at the Upper Big Branch mine to give workers a heads-up when inspectors arrived, which is a violation of federal law. Officials say Stover then denied the practice when asked by federal investigators about it and said he would have fired any security guard who gave such advanced warnings.

The indictment against Stover, unsealed Monday after he was arrested at his home, accuses Stover of making false statements and obstructing a federal investigation.

The charges represent the first criminal charges filed by U.S. officials in connection with the Upper Big Branch mine explosion in West Virginia. The April 5 explosion was the deadliest incident at a U.S. coal mine in decades.

Massey Energy "takes this matter very seriously and is committed to cooperating with the U.S. Attorney's office," Massey General Counsel Shane Harvey said in a statement Monday.

It's unclear whether Stover has an attorney, a spokesman for the Justice Department said.

The indictment says Stover directed an unnamed individual to dispose of security-related documents by throwing them in a trash compactor near the main security gate of the mine. Normally stored in the garage of a house known as the "Barracks," the documents contained several years of security operations at the mine and documented the presence of federal inspectors.

The indictment claims Stover directed the unidentifed person to preserve a limited number of documents related to property transfer and equipment removal. The unidentified person threw out the other documents on Jan. 11, federal officals say.

In a statement, Massey Energy's general counsel says the company notified the U.S. Attorney's office within hours of learning the documents had been thrown away and "took immediate steps" to recover the documents.

U.S. attorneys say the documents were recovered "after the federal government inquired about their existence in the course of its investigation," according to the indictment.

The indictment also says Stover trained his security guards to warn mine workers of federal investigations, using a radio channel known as the "Montcoal channel" to communicate the presence of investigators.

When asked about the practice by an FBI special agent and a special investigator with the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, Stover said Massey Energy had prohibited the practice since at least 1999, the indictment alleges.

--By Tennille Tracy, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6619; tennille.tracy@dowjones.com
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