IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) -- Iowa won't pursue criminal charges against a Texas company that's accused of exploiting developmentally disabled workers at a turkey plant in eastern Iowa.
According to The Des Moines Register (https://bit.ly/ofDfiB), the Iowa Attorney General's Office says the civil penalties that other agencies have obtained against Henry's Turkey Service and its owners will hold the company accountable and serve as a deterrent.
Hill Country Farms, of Goldthwaite, Texas, does business as Henry's Turkey Service. For years it supplied the workers to a turkey processing plant in West Liberty.
U.S. District Judge Harold Vietor ordered Hill Country Farms and its president in April to pay $1.76 million in back wages and damages for repeatedly violating federal labor laws by not paying the minimum wage or overtime to 31 disabled men.