A company accused of using unpaid laborers from a Utah-based polygamous group to pick pecans says the women and children were picking up leftover nuts, not working as employees.
Lawyers for Paragon Contractors say in court documents that most of the harvest was done with mechanized equipment. After it was finished, families from the group led by Warren Jeffs were invited to gather fallen nuts.
U.S. Labor Department attorneys disagree. They say children from the polygamous group harvested nuts for years on the southern Utah farm at the direction of church leaders.
The government says the company violated a 2007 order involving underage labor and should be held in contempt for failing to pay 1,400 workers — including 175 children— who participated in a 2012 pecan harvest.