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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums23 Years a Slave: Restaurant Owner Gets Bullshit Sentence for Enslaving Intellectually Disabled...
...Black Man
On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge R. Bryan Harwell sentenced 54-year-old Bobby Paul Edwards to 10 years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to one count of forced labor, according to a press release from the Department of Justice. Prosecutors say that Edwards, who managed his familys restaurant, forced Chris Smith, an intellectually disabled black man, to work for free and live in a small room behind the restaurant. Court documents show that Edwards physically abused Smith for at least 17 years, including whipping Smith with a belt, beating him with pots and pans and even burning him with hot grease.
[link:https://www.theroot.com/23-years-a-slave-restaurant-owner-gets-bullshit-senten-1839697471|]
How on earth was this not picked up on much earlier... and 10 years??? bloody ridiculous...
Submariner
(12,482 posts)That dump must be closed by now. Who would dare eat there.
AZ8theist
(5,335 posts)Dozens and dozens and dozens of knuckle-dragging racist Trumpanzees. This asshole is probably a hero to them. Wouldn't surprise me if Doturd pardons him...
BumRushDaShow
(127,260 posts)And it was also apparently reported to authorities back in 2014 and investigated - with a local NBC affiliate doing an interview with the victim a year later -
By Theo Hayes | February 16, 2015 at 8:52 AM EST - Updated July 10 at 9:05 PM
CONWAY, SC (WMBF) - It's a tale of alleged torture: a mentally-challenged man says he was physically abused by his employer for years. "He would beat me with belts and all that," says 37-year-old John Christopher Smith. "Take the tongs to the grease on my neck." Smith explained what happened while looking out over the Waccamaw River, alongside one of his advocates. "I want him to go to prison, and I want to be there when he go," Smith said. He has been diagnosed with mild delayed cognitive development, a condition that results in intellectual functioning significantly below average.
He says he had been working at J&J Cafeteria in downtown Conway since he was 12 years old, busing tables, cooking and doing all sorts of tasks. "I started off washing dishes after school," he said.
It was a job Smith says he liked, until the manager, 50-year-old Bobby Paul Edwards, the brother of the owner of the restaurant, allegedly started physically abusing him back in 2010. Court documents describe awful things like beatings with a belt, choking, slapping, and even an incident where Smith was punched with a closed fist.
He says he never said anything because he was scared.
https://www.wmbfnews.com/story/28116609/mentally-challenged-conway-employee-discusses-alleged-abuse-by-employer/
From WaPo's current article, suits were filed and DOJ finally got involved -
By Michael Brice-Saddler
November 7, 2019 at 10:23 p.m. EST
/snip
In a federal lawsuit filed on his behalf by civil attorneys in late 2015, Smith compared Edwards to a slave driver. He said his manager would call him racial slurs, and threatened to stomp his throat and beat him until people would not recognize him. Plaintiff was heard crying like a child and yelling, No, Bobby, please! After this beating, Defendant Bobby forced Plaintiff to get back to work, the complaint read.
Smith worked grueling 17-hour days under Edwardss watch, according to court documents. The only reprieve came on Sundays, when he was still forced to work from 6 a.m. until 2 p.m. The lawsuit alleged that Smith lived in a roach-infested apartment behind the restaurant that was owned by Edwards. Smiths attorneys described the conditions as harmful to human health.
All the while, Edwards did not pay Smith but told him he was maintaining a bank account in his name, prosecutors said. The bank account did not exist.
Smith was finally removed from the situation when someone notified authorities. Social workers found Smith with scars on his back and immediately placed him in the custody of Adult Protective Services.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/11/07/white-restaurant-owner-admitted-enslaving-black-man-years-he-got-years-prison/
So the cases were going on for awhile.
But this is an issue of why the cry for "criminal justice reform". It's been a slog.
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,021 posts)BumRushDaShow
(127,260 posts)(like the original suits were filed on his behalf) due to his being mentally challenged. They should make them liquidate the business and put that money in a trust to supplement his living expenses, any medical care, and any additional job training that might be helpful for him to continue to be a productive citizen and have a sense of self-worth & self-sufficiency.
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,021 posts)I confess to just skimming the articles -- a lot going on.
Looks to me like the court should appoint a guardian, assuming he doesn't already have one. The man fell through the cracks (many intentionally created) in our social safety net.
BumRushDaShow
(127,260 posts)the state's Department of Social Services had been contacted in 2014 and that is when he had been removed to an "undisclosed location". So I expect between the lawyers and the the state, there is someone handling his affairs.
He had apparently fallen through the cracks by the fact that he had been working at that place since he was 12 (and who knows how he was taken care of then - with the assumption that he wasn't even old enough to be an emancipated minor) and he would be 41 this year.
MagickMuffin
(15,886 posts)Now that would be more in line with what justice should look like.
JudyM
(29,122 posts)IndyOp
(15,501 posts)At the link.
Sometimes? In what fucking world is once not enough?