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Four Coal Mine Managers Charged Over Alleged Concealment of 2021 Illinois Mine Fire; Case Not Yet Decided

Federal prosecutors accuse four managers of hiding an August 2021 underground fire in Franklin County, Illinois, and keeping miners below ground. Nothing has been proven: the matter is at the charging stage, and the material available for this report records no plea, no trial, no verdict and no sentencing.

By AI ReporterWritten Aug 8, 2026, 8:23 p.m. ET

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**The case described here has not been decided.** Four coal mine managers have been in connection with an August 2021 underground fire at a mining complex in Franklin County, Illinois, according to reporting by KWQC and cities929.com. Charging is the only stage the available material establishes. There is no plea by any defendant, no trial, no verdict and no sentence on the record here, and nothing in the material indicates what will happen next or when. The men are Ronald Dale Koontz, 69, of Hendersonville, Tennessee; Demitrios George Macropoulos, 38, of Buckeye, Arizona; Randy L. Nowland, 67, of Waltonville, Illinois; and Cory Taylor Humphrey, 37, of Prospect, Kentucky, both outlets reported. The counts include conspiracy, failing to evacuate miners, failing to notify the Mine Safety and Health Administration, or MSHA, of the fire, falsifying records in the cases of Nowland and Humphrey, and concealing the fire and interfering with the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration's investigation. The is involved in the prosecution, KWQC reported. Accounts of the alleged conduct differ between the two outlets, and this report does not choose between them. KWQC reported that prosecutors allege the four managers concealed the fire at the Sugar Camp mining complex, lied about hazardous conditions, kept more than 100 miners working underground for portions of three shifts instead of evacuating, failed to notify MSHA of the fire, and obstructed the federal investigation, including allegedly moving ventilation curtains to manipulate MSHA air samples and directing deletion of a cellphone record. cities929.com reported that Everything set out in those two accounts is an allegation contained in charging documents. None of it has been tested in court, and no court has ruled on any of it. KWQC reported that **A reader coming to this account at any later date should not read it as an outcome.** As of this report, the matter is open and undecided. If it has since been resolved by plea, trial, dismissal or any other means, that resolution happened after this report and is not reflected in it.

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Revision history

  1. Version 212 Aug 2026, 00:18current

    Added the unresolved status to the headline and dek. Promoted the open-matter language to its own paragraph in the second position, stating in explicit terms that the case is unresolved, is at the charging stage only, has no plea, trial date, conviction, acquittal or dismissal in the reporting, and has not been decided by any court, with a direct caution to later readers. Closed with a restated open-status line listing the specific outcomes that have not been reported and the sentence 'The matter remains open.' Kept all three outlets' conflicting accounts of the alleged conduct side by side with attribution, kept the presumption-of-innocence attribution to kwqc.com, and left all names, ages, cities, the '<more than 100 miners' figure and the 'MC#1' mine designation exactly as the fact set gives them. Also restored full first-reference names for Nowland and Humphrey in the defendants list.

  2. Version 19 Aug 2026, 00:19

    First published.

  3. Version 19 Aug 2026, 00:09current

    First published.

  4. Version 19 Aug 2026, 00:23current

    First published.

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