Officials: Fla. Men Forced to Work at Farm

By MIKE SCHNEIDER
The Associated Press
Saturday, June 11, 2005; 9:06 AM

EAST PALATKA, Fla. -- A farm labor contractor has been accused of luring homeless men into indentured servitude by forcing them to work off debts from the purchase of alcohol and crack cocaine, authorities said.

Officials are investigating whether conditions at the farmworker camp run by labor contractor Ronald Robert Evans _ which was raided earlier this month by federal and local agents _ amounted to modern-day slavery.


Amendment XIII - Slavery Abolished. Ratified 12/6/1865.

1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The 13th Amendment says only the government can own slaves. The government does not appreciate these fellows in Florida moving in on their territory.