Ex-resident of home describes work by youths

The Baton Rouge Advocate/AP

GULFPORT, Miss. -- Some youths living at a controversial fundamentalist Christian boarding home worked as many as 12 or 13 hours a day and six days a week constructing houses without pay, a 13-year-old former student testified in a trial alleging violation of child labor laws.

A former resident of the Bethel Children's Home in Lucedale, Kevin Funk of Columbus, told a fedearl court that the children did such work as tearing down buildings as well as building houses.

"We would leave Lucedale at 7:30 a.m. and we would get back around 7 or 8 p.m.," Funk said.

The teen-ager told the court of a time when a youth lost a finger while using a circular saw at Bethel.

"The saw he was using didn't have a guard, and he cut his finger off. I saw him run out of the building with blood dripping off of his finger," Funk said.

The U.S. District Court in Gulfport held a hearing Wednesday on a request for a preliminary injunction against the Rev. Herman Fountain and the home that would bar him from using children on work projects.

The Bethel Children's Home, affiliated with Fountain's independent Bethel Baptist Church in Lucedale, is accused of violating child labor laws by making children under the age of 18 do work deemed physically dangerous by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Judge Dan Russell, who is to rule later, decided to change the hearing to include a permanent injunction against Fountain and the home. This would preclude them from using their residents to do dangerous labor.

The prosecution subpoenaed Fountain's records in an attempt to determine whether he has purchased building supplies and sold houses built by the residents of the home.

But Fountain declined to bring the records to court, claiming that the separation of church and state in the First Amendment gives him the right to refuse.

"The way I see the First Amendment, we are totally separate. The government has no authority over the church," Fountain said.

Russell indicated he would hold Fountain in contempt for failing to bring the records. He also allowed use of an affidavit compiled by an agent of the Department of Labor as evidence, using Fountain's failure to comply as an exception to the hearsay rule.

Funk also testified that the residents of the home were expected to work about six days per week doing construction work and digging septic tanks. He also said the boys were made to work, or suffer punishment.

"They told us what to do. If you didn't do the work, then they would pick a switch and you got it then," Funk said.

School was often interrupted, Funk said, in order to work. He said that the school was set up "so you could work as fast or slow as you wanted."