SCRIPT: Sago Mine Owner Speaks 1/5/06

So how safe was Sago mine and what does the man who controls it plan to do for the miners and families left behind? Will he be as generous as he can be? Is he personally giving any money at all? Here's ABC Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross.

BRIAN ROSS, ABC NEWS

A little known billionaire with an office in a New York City skyscraper is the man who bears the ultimate responsibility for the mine in West Virginia.

WILBUR ROSS, OWNER OF THE SAGO MINE

Oh, my God, it's the worst week of my entire life.

BRIAN ROSS

Wilbur Ross is a socially prominent businessman with homes on Fifth Avenue, the Hamptons and Palm Beach. He is also the chairman and principal owner of the company that took over the Sago mine just a few months ago.

BRIAN ROSS

Would you call this a safe mine?

WILBUR ROSS

I believed that the mine was fundamentally safe.

BRIAN ROSS

You really do?

WILBUR ROSS

Yeah, I really do.

BRIAN ROSS

And in the business world, Ross is considered a shrewd investor who buys companies in trouble. He began moving into the coal industry two years ago.

BRIAN ROSS

You're known by some on Wall Street as a vulture investor, a bottom feeder. Someone who goes in, buys up distressed bankrupt industries, tries to cut costs, and then sell them and make huge profits. Is that an accurate description?

WILBUR ROSS

No, I think if we had a bird, it wouldn't be the vulture. A vulture picks flesh off a dead carcass.

BRIAN ROSS

The tiny Sago mine in West Virginia had been in bankruptcy for two years when Ross bought it and bought into a mine that for its size may have been the most dangerous coal mine in America. Based on Department of Labor records reviewed by "Primetime," the mine received 16 citations last year for the most serious violations that can be issued, called unwarranted failures.

JOE MAIN, FORMER UNITED MINE WORKERS SAFETY DIRECTOR

It's normally issued to mine operators that thumb their nose at the law.

BRIAN ROSS

Joe Main was the safety director of the United Mine Workers for 20 years.

JOE MAIN

This is the kind of violation I think most operators cringe to get in the mining industry today because of the significance of the violation itself. So there was definitely a serious problem at this coal mine when you look at just that one fact alone.

BRIAN ROSS

And it turns out that the violations were well-known to the billionaire chairman of the company back in New York.

WILBUR ROSS

Well, there were violations. Every mine in the country has violations.

BRIAN ROSS

208 violations, 96 of them significant or substantial, 13 D-level. You know what that means?

WILBUR ROSS

Yeah.

BRIAN ROSS

That means unwarranted failure.

WILBUR ROSS

I understand what they mean.

BRIAN ROSS

How could you operate a mine like that? Why would you keep it open with those records of violations?

WILBUR ROSS

Well, you have to put it in the context of the industry. I mean...

BRIAN ROSS

Every day, men go down into those holes.

WILBUR ROSS

I understand.

BRIAN ROSS

Where, according to the records, and you've seen them...

WILBUR ROSS

Sure.

BRIAN ROSS

The roofs keep falling in. They found combustible materials in there just weeks before this accident.

WILBUR ROSS

Yeah.

BRIAN ROSS

Were you comfortable sending men into that hole?

WILBUR ROSS

We were comfortable based on the assurances from our management that they felt that it was a safe situation.

BRIAN ROSS