White SC Diner Manager Enslaved Black Man For Years: Justice Department

CONWAY, SC — A white South Carolina restaurant manager held a black man with a mild cognitive disorder as a slave for five years, physically and psychologically abused him, and forced him to work 18-hour days as a buffet cook with little or no pay, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court and media reports. The restaurant owner, Bobby Paul Edwards, 52, was charged with one count of forced labor.

The Justice Department said in a statement that from September 2009 to October 2014, Edwards used “force, threats of force, physical restraint and coercion, among other means, to compel the victim, who has an intellectual disability, to work as the buffet cook of J&J Cafeteria in Conway, South Carolina.”

Edwards, who was arrested Tuesday, pleaded not guilty to charge filed under the U.S. Code section on “peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude or human trafficking.” The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison in fines of $250,000 and, if convicted, Edwards will have to pay restitution the victim, federal prosecutors said in the statement.

Edwards’ attorney, Scott Bellamy, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the charge lacks merit, and he noted the Justice Department never used the word “slavery” in its indictment. (For more news from Myrtle Beach Patch, sign up for real-time news alerts, or find your local South Carolina Patch here. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

“We deny any allegations of slavery and abuse,” Bellamy told the newspaper. “We don’t believe there was any slavery involved. That word — in the climate we’re in in this country, quite frankly — makes it even more of a story.”

The victim, John Christopher Smith, 39, told The Washington Post he had worked at the restaurant since he was 12 and liked his job until Edwards took over as manager. Then, the job turned into a nightmare, he said.

Though the full details of the case weren’t released, a federal civil lawsuit filed in 2015 offers a glimpse at Smith’s life when Edwards began managing the diner, located about five miles from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

He received little or no pay, no benefits and no vacation time, Smith alleged in the lawsuit. He worked 18-hour days, often so worn out after the long shifts that he had to be carried home and “physically fed drink and food.” Edwards behaved like a slave driver and used racial slurs when speaking with Smith, and threatened to “stomp” his throat and beat him “until people would not recognize him,” the lawsuit alleges.

In 2015, Smith told WMBF-TV that Edwards would “beat me with belts and all that” and that he has scars on his neck and back after Edwards allegedly hit him with tongs dripping with hot grease.

Edwards was charged with second-degree assault, a misdemeanor, in 2014 in a case that is still pending in state courts. Smith’s advocate at the time, Geneane Caines, told the TV station she became involved after her daughter-in-law, a server at the restaurant, told her what had been going on.

“Well, customers who were going in there would hear stuff and they didn’t know what was going on, and they would ask the waitresses, and the waitresses were so scared of Bobby they wouldn’t tell them what it was,” Caines told WMBF at the time.

Adult Protective Services in South Carolina took Smith into custody after the assault charges were filed, according to reports.

Caines said she took the case to the NAACP because she thought Edwards had been undercharged in the second-degree assault case.

“Anyone who is rational and has any sense of logic should realize once you have the facts right here, it should have been more than just assault,” Abdullah Mustafa, the president of the Conway chapter of the NAACP, told WMBF. “We are talking about enslavement here.”

In the civil lawsuit, Smith’s lawyers said he could be heard “crying like a child and yelling, ‘No, Bobby, please!’ ” during one beating, but was then forced “to get back to work.”

Smith was afraid if he said anything, the abuse would worsen and he might die, according to the lawsuit.

It also alleges that Edwards claimed a $30,000 bank account had been established in Smith’s name, but Smith was never paid the money or given access to the account. Smith earned about $1,000 a quarter, according to the lawsuit, and lived in an apartment Edwards owned behind the restaurant that Smith’s attorneys have described as “sub-human,” “deplorable” and “harmful to human health.”

Both Edwards and the owner of the restaurant, his brother Ernest J. Edwards, have denied the allegations in the civil lawsuit, which include slavery, discrimination and labor violations.

Bellamy told the Post and Courier the Justice Department has targeted Bobby Edwards since the 2014 assault charge was filed.

“Bobby maintained his innocence three years ago,” the lawyer said. “The federal government has been looking at this for two years, trying to find something. And he still maintains his innocence.”

The current case is being prosecuted by Special Litigation Counsel Jared Fishman and Trial Attorney Lindsey Roberson of the Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Alyssa Richardson of the District of South Carolina.

Photo via Horry County Sheriff’s Department