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Minnesota attorney general files rare criminal charges for wage theft against dairy owner • Minnesota Reformer [1]
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Date: 2025-02-04
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Tuesday four counts of felony wage theft and one count of felony racketeering against the owner of a sprawling central Minnesota dairy operation.
The case represents the most significant prosecution of wage theft since Minnesota lawmakers made it a felony in 2019. Since then, no one has been convicted of felony wage theft despite it likely being one of the most common forms of theft.
According to the criminal complaint filed in Stearns County, Evergreen Acres owner Keith Schaefer systematically underpaid workers, charged them for living quarters unfit for humans and threatened them with violence and deportation. Felony racketeering carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years and felony wage theft carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
The case details horrific labor abuses in a dangerous industry notorious for exploiting undocumented workers.
One worker, who is only identified by the initials N.G.C. in the charging document, started working for the company in 2021 at just 15 years old, in violation of child labor laws.
He worked upwards of 84 hours per week and was paid $12 an hour, but never overtime pay. He was charged $75 every two weeks for a small bed he shared with his father in a small house with about 10 other workers and an infestation of bedbugs and cockroaches, according to the statement of probable cause by special agent Nicholas Riba with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
N.G.C. resigned after he says Schaefer berated him and tried to strike him in the face with a sharpened pencil. Because the boy did not provide two weeks’ notice, the company withheld his last paycheck for about 168 hours of work, according to the complaint.
The boy’s father, identified as R.G.F. in the complaint, had started at the company five years earlier working in the birthing center. He was told never to tell state officials the type of work he was doing because he wasn’t a trained professional. At one point, R.G.F. was forced to live in a garage after Schaefer discovered he was organizing workers to improve their working conditions, according to the complaint. He lived in the garage, without a kitchen or plumbing, for approximately one year and was charged $75 every two weeks for rent.
R.G.F. was also injured on the job while trying to install a security camera, but when he asked to take time off, Schaefer threatened to fire him or call the police on him in an apparent threat of deportation. He didn’t seek treatment until his sole day off for the month. He left Evergreen Acres the next month after Schaefer tried to push him when he asked about being shorted on his paycheck.
Evergreen withheld his final paycheck of about $3,000 for 204 hours of work over 17 days, according to the criminal investigation.
The charging documents also include an account of a worker identified as R.R.L., who says he was routinely underpaid. When he threatened to get a lawyer after being fired, Schaefer made the shape of a gun with his hand and pointed it at R.R.L.’s face and said he would send his “ass back to Mexico.” Schaefer alleged said he would kill R.R.L like the dog he had just killed, according to the complaint.
Another worker, H.H.C., said Schaefer also threatened to kill him if he ever hurt any of his cows, whom he called his children.
An attorney for Schaefer did not immediately return a voicemail seeking comment.
Ellison brought a civil suit against Schaefer and his daughter Megan Hill last year, alleging they stole more than $3 million in wages from hundreds of mostly undocumented immigrants across more than a dozen farms.
It was one of the biggest wage theft cases ever brought by Ellison’s office, which ultimately settled the case for just $250,000. Many workers balked at the settlement, saying settling wage debts for pennies on the dollar would only embolden Schaefer and other dairy farm owners to cheat workers.
“What are the other farmers going to say? It’s minimal. They’re going to keep doing the same thing,” one worker, speaking in Spanish, told Attorney General Keith Ellison through an interpreter during a meeting in November.
Workers and their advocates also questioned why Schaefer wasn’t in prison, saying they believed they’d be arrested if they stole so much as a bottle of water let alone $3 million.
At the time, Ellison explained that he didn’t have original jurisdiction and the civil settlement was the best his office could do without taking the case to trial.
In a news release on Tuesday, Ellison’s office said the Stearns County Attorney referred the case to the Office of Attorney General, allowing him to prosecute the case.
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https://minnesotareformer.com/2025/02/04/minnesota-attorney-general-files-rare-criminal-charges-against-dairy-owner-for-wage-thef/
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