W.Va. man sentenced for threat at mine
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WAYNESBURG – A Fairmont, W.Va., man arrested in April for calling in a bomb threat to the Emerald Mine in Waynesburg to avoid having to report to work pleaded guilty Dec. 9 in Greene County court.
John Paul Perkins, 42, of 121 ½ Hunsaker St., employed by a subcontractor at the mine, will serve 5 years in the Greene County Intermediate Punishment Program on a charge of threats to use weapons of mass destruction. Perkins will serve the first 30 days of the sentence on 15 consecutive weekends followed by 12 months of house arrest with GPS monitoring.
Perkins told police he called in the threat at 1:15 p.m. on April 11 to avoid work because he didn’t have a baby-sitter for his 8-year-old daughter, according to the criminal complaint.
Emerald officials told police the evacuation of the mine and the halt in production resulted in a loss of $96,295. Perkins was ordered to pay that amount in restitution, plus court costs and fees by the end of his 5-year sentence.
According to the criminal complaint filed by Trooper Daniel Barnhart, mine superintendent Randy Conklin received a voicemail message on his telephone in which a man said if the mine was not evacuated and operations suspended in one hour, a bomb would detonate.
The mine was evacuated and a search was conducted by state police and a police canine. No explosives were detected.
Caller identification on Conklin’s telephone indicated the call originated from a pay phone at GoMart in Fairmont.
Fairmont police detective Adrian Hayhurst obtained a surveillance video from the store that showed a man coming from the area of the pay phone and a gray Chevrolet Impala parked nearby, Barnhart said.
Hayhurst was able to identify the man in the video as Perkins from a previous arrest photograph. It was learned Perkins also owned a gray Impala.
Conklin later told Barnhart Perkins works for CSA, a staffing company that provides laborers for a subcontractor working at the mine and that Perkins was scheduled to work the 4 p.m. to midnight shift at the mine the day the threat was made.
Perkins’ sentence is to be served concurrently to a sentence in Marion County, W.Va., on unrelated charges.