"Pacific Gas & Electric confessed Tuesday to killing 84 people in one of the most devastating wildfires in recent U.S. history during a dramatic court hearing punctuated by a promise from the company’s outgoing CEO that the nation’s largest utility will never again put profits ahead of safety.

PG&E CEO Bill Johnson made the roughly 170-mile (275-kilometer) journey from the company’s San Francisco headquarters to a Butte County courthouse to plead guilty to 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter stemming from a November 2018 wildfire ignited by the utility’s crumbling electrical grid. The blaze nearly wiped out the entire town of Paradise and drove PG&E into bankruptcy early last year.

Besides the mass deaths it caused, PG&E also pleaded guilty to one felony count of unlawfully starting a fire as part of an agreement with District Attorney Mike Ramsey."

Michael Liedtke reports for the Associated Press June 16, 2020. [2]

SEE ALSO:

"PG&E Pleads Guilty to Killing 84 People in 2018 Camp Fire" (Bloomberg Environment) [3]