Russ Goodman, a Georgia state senator running for reelection, has routinely hired a family of farm labor contractors linked to a human trafficking criminal investigation to provide workers for his family blueberry farm.
in the U.S. Southern District Court of Georgia in October 2021. It charged two dozen people with conspiracy to engage in forced labor and related crimes and said defendants threatened workers and forced them to pay illegal fees to obtain jobs, work for little or no pay and live in unsanitary conditions. The case is ongoing.
Blueberries are the main crop harvested by the guest farmworkers at Cogdell Berry Farm in rural Clinch County, but the family has also produced cattle, pecans and timber. Blueberries are a labor-intensive crop that has expanded in Georgia — a state previously known mostly for peaches and sweet Vidalia onions.
Kemp appointed Goodman a Senate floor leader right after he was elected. The governor also posed for photos for his own campaign ads wearing a T-shirt with the name Cogdell Cattle Company, owned by Goodman’s wife.No one from Kemp’s staff or campaign responded to repeated attempts to reach the incumbent for comment.
“Rest assured we will not do business with any person or entity you’ve alleged within your email if those allegations are proven to be true and have not been remediated to the satisfaction of the United States Department of Labor and the Georgia Department of Labor and my family,” he said. “They will also be pulling weeds, hoeing, raking, cleaning areas around the farms and buildings,” the letter said. “They will be working behind the blueberry harvester to off load and stack lugs of blueberries.”
Early that year, in 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor had begun the process of rejecting a petition by Luis Alvarez to bring guest farmworkers to the senator’s farm because Alvarez had requested workers nearly year-round for the site, which is not allowed by the program regulations. Marmulejo Hererra said that was her first indication workers had been charged, and she said Gonzalez was the person who charged them.
Her son Daniel Mendoza, who also filed guest-worker petitions, is also indicted. Both have pleaded not guilty.
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