Freedom Industries Learns Sentence as a Company

Freedom Industries has been sentenced to the maximum possible penalty on pollution charges. But a federal judge in Charleston said his sentence Thursday of a $900,000 fine and five years’ probation for Freedom Industries was symbolic and likely would never be paid. Freedom filed for bankruptcy eight days after the January 2014 spill. A federal bankruptcy judge approved a liquidation plan in October. At a separate hearing Thursday, former plant manager Michael Burdette became the third Freedom official to be fined and sentenced to probation.