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Submitted by BlueNC on Mon, 05/03/2021 - 08:36 OVER 40% OF NORTH CAROLINIANS ARE FULLY VACCINATED: At least 969,752 people in North Carolina have tested positive for the coronavirus, and 12,651 have died since March 2020, according to state health officials. The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services reported 2,231 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, up from 1,985 reported the day before. At least 1,101 people were hospitalized with the coronavirus as of Friday, down from 1,137 reported on Thursday. As of Wednesday, the latest day for which data is available, 4.8% of coronavirus tests were r...

Jailed South Carolina diner boss who  enslaved and branded disabled black man by making him work 100-hour weeks without pay is ordered to pay him $500,000 Bobby Paul Edwards, 56, was convicted in 2019 of imprisoning an intellectually-disabled black man and forcing him to work long days without pay As part of a plea deal, Edwards had to pay $273,000 in restitution An appellate judge, however, ruled on April 21 that the restitution was not enough, and he should pay double the amount Edwards allegedly took over as manager of the restaurant in 2009 He soon started beating longtime employee John ...

Faced with an intellectual disability, Smith became enslaved by Edwards from 2009 to 2014. Edwards moved the man into an apartment attached to the restaurant and “forced him to work more than 100 hours per week without pay.”  “Edwards effected this forced labor by taking advantage of Jack’s intellectual disability and keeping Jack isolated from his family, threatening to have him arrested, and verbally abusing him,” Niemeyer wrote.  On one occasion, Edwards dipped metal tongs into hot grease when Smith didn’t bring fried chicken to the buffet as fast as Edwards wanted, acco...

By Michael LucianoMay 3rd, 2021, 5:09 pm   A former restaurant manager who enslaved a cognitively impaired Black man between 2009 and 2014 should pay his victim double the restitution that had been originally determined, says the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Pursuant to a plea deal struck with federal prosecutors in 2019, Bobby Paul Edwards, now 56, agreed to pay John Christopher Smith, now 43, $273,000 in unpaid wages and overtime in accordance with the Fair Labor Standards Act. Edwards was sentenced to 10-years in prison as part of the deal. The enslavement began in 2009 when Ed...

A restaurant manager who forced a Black man to work without pay owes him more than $500,000 in restitution, court rules A South Carolina man who was forced to work over 100 hours every week for years without pay and subjected to verbal and physical abuse was supposed to receive close to $273,000 in restitution after his former manager pleaded guilty. But that initial amount was too low, an appellate court ruled in April. The man should have received more than double that amount — closer to $546,000 — from the manager to account for federal labor laws, according to the ruling. John Christo...