(The Associated Press circulated the following on January 29, 2010.)
BECKLEY, W.Va. — Three men accused of a participating in a plot to steal copper wire that resulted in a train derailment in southern West Virginia have been sentenced on federal charges.
The U.S. Attorney’s office says 29-year-old Thomas Browning of Cyclone and 52-year-old Ricky Nichols of Itmann each were sentenced Thursday to five years in prison. Twenty-three-year-old Landon Cline of Rock House received five years and three months.
The defendants had pleaded guilty last summer to charges that they put two I-beams on a railroad track near Baileysville on Aug. 28, 2005, to avoid detection while they stole copper wire from Norfolk Southern.
A Norfolk Southern train hit the I-beams that evening and derailed, causing nearly $400,000 in damage to three locomotives and 23 rail cars.