A federal judge has given former Freedom Industries official Gary Southern permission to travel to England if there is a family emergency involving Southern's ailing father.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnston approved Southern's request in an order issued on Friday.
The judge included some restrictions on Southern's travel, after prosecutors raised concerns about what they called an "open-ended" request. Any specific trips must be approved by Southern's probation officer and "each single instance of travel" must be limited to no more than 14 days, the judge said.
Southern sought court approval for the travel because he remains on supervised release after completing a jail sentence for water pollution crimes he admitted to in a deal with prosecutors.
Southern's lawyers asked that Johnston pre-approve Southern for travel, while he is on supervised release, to his native England "in the event of a medical emergency in his immediate family."
Southern's parents live in England, and the health of his father, who has Parkinson's disease, has deteriorated. Southern wanted permission to travel to England to visit his father and mother should his father's health continue to decline and a health emergency or emergencies arise.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Phil Wright had asked Johnston to place some limits on approved travel, saying that as requested, Southern's proposal would allow him to "travel beyond the supervision of the court and his probation officer for an indefinite period of time, potentially rendering his term of supervised release a nullity."
In February, Johnston sentenced Southern to 30 days in prison, a $20,000 fine and six months of supervised release for his role in the pollution crimes that caused the Freedom Industries spill that contaminated the drinking water supply for hundreds of thousands of people in Charleston and surrounding communities.
Johnston sentenced Southern to well below the range of 18 to 24 months recommended by the advisory guidelines issued by the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Southern had faced a statutory maximum of three years in prison, one year for each of the three pollution crimes he has admitted to: negligent discharge of a pollutant; discharge of refuse material; and negligent violation of a Clean Water Act permit. He could have been fined up to $300,000.
In a plea deal with Southern, then-U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin dropped a dozen felony counts related to allegations that Southern had tried to hide his personal wealth from Freedom's bankruptcy proceeding and from civil lawsuits over the spill. The deal allowed Southern to recover more than $7 million and a Bentley luxury car that federal agents had seized from him.
Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kward@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1702 or follow @kenwardjr on Twitter.