"When people show you who they are, believe them the first time." Ben Mossman was found guilty of 13 charges related to discharging substances into the environment above permitted amounts when he was CEO and mine manager of the Yellow Giant Gold Mine in BC Canada. He was found not guilty on 10 other charges, but the judge had to some choice words to say about that. Ben Mossman was removed as CEO of Rise Gold just before he was sentenced to pay a fine of $30,000 Canadian dollars in Canadian Court. He remains on Rise's Board of Directors to this day.
Read the full article in The Union newspaper.
Excerpts:
"Dan McLaughlin, Communications Counsel for the BC Prosecution Service states that the offenses with which Mr. Mossman is charged in British Columbia are “related to allegations of the discharge of waste, effluent, and other deleterious substances into the environment in contravention of several statutory regulations”.
"In his written judgement, Judge Patterson repeatedly stated that he had his suspicions about the charges on which Mossman was exonerated, but that the prosecution had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mossman was directly responsible for the environmental damage resulting from the well-documented spills.
"The judge stated that the testimony of the prosecution’s primary witness, the mine’s Environmental Manager and Site Biologist was flawed because of “her profound hostility, animosity, and negative attitude” towards Mr. Mossman and the trial process, as well as her less than satisfactory recollection of the events prior to the 2015 shutdown of the Yellow Giant Mine."