NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Former inmates at a privately run Nashville jail say they worked without pay building bean-bag “cornhole” games, plaques shaped like footballs, birdhouses and dog beds so that officials could sell them through their personal business at a flea market.
Inmates can legally be required to work without pay, in some circumstances, but jail employees are not supposed to profit from their labor. But former inmates Larry Stephney and Charles Brew say that is what happened with Stand Firm Designs, run by two jail employees and one former employee, according to their business card.
Although the company website says Stand Firm Designs is “composed of retired contractors,” Stephney and Brew said they produced some of the company’s products while working without pay in the jail’s woodshop under fear of retaliation.
Those products were sold at the Nashville Flea Market and through the website, they said. Plaques went for $10 to $20 and bean-bag toss games commonly called cornhole were $50, they said.
A section of the website with pictures of the plaques Stephney and Brew say they produced has recently been taken down.