New US Attorney Named to Replace Goodwin

Assistant U.S. Attorney Carol A. Casto has been named acting U.S. attorney for West Virginia’s southern district. The announcement Monday comes a week after U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin resigned to return to private practice. Casto has served as an assistant U.S. attorney since 1989 in Charleston. Before that she was an assistant prosecutor in Kanawha County for six years. Goodwin announced his resignation less than a month after the federal trial of former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship. Blankenship was found guilty on Dec. 3 of conspiring to willfully violate mine safety rules at West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine, which exploded in 2010 and killed 29 men.