The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

Coal firm says suspect in sex, drugs case was not involved in its day-to-day operations

Firm says suspect helped with papers

The president of Mark Energy LLC says a man arrested last week on federal drug and sex trafficking charges has nothing to do with his company.

Kenny Spangler said in a statement issued last week that he has never met or spoken with Mark Milslagle, who was charged in federal court last week with complicity to trafficking in pills containing oxycodone and complicity to sex trafficking.

The criminal complaint sworn by an agent of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, noted that Milslagle was listed as an organizer of Mark Energy, which has applied for a permit to mine coal at Eolia, but Spangler said Milslagle only filled out the forms for the company when he formed it more than a year ago. Spangler’s lawyer, Calvin R. Tackett of Whitesburg, said the work Milslagle did was done through an intermediary who “owed him (Spangler) a favor,” and that Spangler never met Milslagle, never talked to him, and never paid him any money for setting up the company.

“ We have no ongoing relationship with Mr. Milslagle,” Spangler said in the statement. “He is not an owner, officer, nor director of our company. He does not act as our accountant. He does not keep our books or do our taxes.”

Asked about the fact the name of the company is the same as Milslagle’s first name, Spangler said it was coincidence. He said the name is an acronym that uses the first initial of each of his family members to spell out the word mark.

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