Dairy farm owner threatened to kill workers who objected to being underpaid, MN cops say
.jpg "A dairy farmer is accused of underpaying employees, then threatening them when they complained, Minnesota police said.")
Employees who labored long hours on a dairy farm were disappointed on payday when their checks showed no overtime pay and was missing compensation for regular hours worked, Minnesota police said.
When workers approached Keith Lawrence Schaefer, the 57-year-old owner of Evergreen Acres Dairy who was involved in the farm’s day-to-day operations, he would threaten to call the police or immigration and even kill the employees, according to a probable cause statement filed Feb. 3 in district court.
The Stearns County farm owner is now facing charges of racketeering and wage theft, according to court records.
Schaefer’s attorney information was not listed.
Employees were granted company-provided housing near the farm in which they were charged up to $75 every two weeks, investigators said.
Ten workers lived in one small home, officials said, and the house was infested with bed bugs and cockroaches.
Sometimes, workers living in company housing were not given a bedroom and slept in a hallway or garage, according to the probable cause statement.
Pay conversations turn into threats
A father who had been working at the farm’s birthing center for years received a paycheck in 2020 for 144 hours of work when he had worked a total of 180 during the pay period, court documents said. He was owed approximately $810 in overtime, but his manager refused to pursue the matter, court documents said.
The man’s son also worked on the farm, beginning when he was a teenager, investigators said. The son was also “consistently” shortchanged hourly wages, according to court documents.
Two years later, the father approached Schaefer when he was again shortchanged on a paycheck, investigators said. Schaefer told the employee he “did not have any more money” and to leave.
He pushed the employee and threatened to call the police, court documents said. The father was never given his final paycheck, which should have been worth approximately $3,000, according to the documents.
When another employee mentioned hiring a lawyer to help him receive his full pay, the farm owner threatened to hire more lawyers to send the employee “back to Mexico,” according to court documents. Then, Schaefer said he would kill the man, according to police.
More than a dozen former employees reported to investigators that they were underpaid at least $1,000 while they worked on Schaefer’s farm, court documents said.
Schaefer is scheduled to appear in court March 17.
Stearns County is about a 90-mile drive northwest from Minneapolis.
