FLDS church, its bishop Lyle Jeff and a business contractor to pay nearly $1 million for making children work without pay for years
The choice comes after a 2012 video confirmed girls and kids working to reap pecans at a farm in southern Utah. The US Division of Labor had filed a criticism, accusing bishop Lyle Jeffs and his enterprise contractor, Brian Jessop, of illegally hiring the kids.
U.S. District Courtroom Choose Jill Parrish on Wednesday ordered Jeffs to pay $312,079.30 in again wages and $312,079.30 in damages, in response to court docket paperwork. One other $281,336.32 in again wages had been additionally ordered for Jeffs, Jessop and the church.
The U.S. Division of Labor alleged Paragon Contractors — the corporate Jessop ran on the time — used kids from FLDS to work on the pecan farm with out pay from 2008 to 2013, court docket paperwork from 2019 present.
Jeffs and Jessop allegedly did not doc information of the hours labored on the ranch, refused to offer names of workers and did not reply to subpoenas, the paperwork present.
“Consequently, there aren’t any exact information reflecting the particular variety of uncompensated hours labored by kids for Defendants in violation of the kid labor provisions of the (Honest Labor Requirements Act),” the court docket paperwork say. “The kids had been a part of the elusive, tight-knit, and really managed FLDS polygamist enclave carefully linked to Paragon.”
CNN has tried to contact Lyle Jeffs, FLDS, Paragon Contractors, and Jessop for remark, however was unable to achieve them.
In 2017, Lyle Jeffs was sentenced to 57 months in federal jail for his function in meals stamp fraud and for escaping home arrest whereas awaiting trial.
FLDS is a spiritual sect that broke away from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also referred to as the Mormon Church, over the apply of polygamy.
The sect as an estimated 10,000 members — most of whom reside in Colorado Metropolis, Arizona and Hildale, Utah. The group additionally has followers close to Eldorado, Texas, and in South Dakota, Colorado, Nevada, British Columbia and Mexico.
CNN’s Aya Elamroussi contributed to this report.
