Chemical Company Is Acquitted in Asbestos Case

By KIRK JOHNSON
NYT

A federal court jury on Friday acquitted the big chemical products company, W.R. Grace, and three of its executives, on all charges that they had knowingly contaminated the small Montana mining town of Libby with asbestos, then conspired to cover up the deed.

At least 200 people have died of asbestos-related diseases and hundreds more have been sickened in the tiny community of Libby, population about 2,600. And there is no doubt that the Zonolite Mountain vermiculite mine, owned and operated by Grace from 1963 to 1990, was the source of the asbestos.

But the jury in Federal District Court in Missoula — deliberating for less than two days after a nearly three-month trial — unanimously concluded that the disaster was not a criminal act.

The verdict marked a repudiation of the federal government’s case, which painted Grace as a greedy mine operator, cognizant of the risks of its mining operations — and the dust plumes that once famously wafted through town — and then callously, criminally covering up the crime.

(More here.)