The U.S. Department of Labor has filed a complaint against the owners of the now-shuttered Henry’s Turkey Farm, documents filed in U.S. District Court, Davenport show.

Hill Country Farms, Henry’s Turkey Services and Kenneth Henry paid the mentally disabled men who lived at the farm only $65 a month for work they did at nearby West Liberty Foods and at the Atalissa, Iowa, farm, Hilda Solis, secretary of labor, said in the lawsuit.

The agency is asking a federal judge to require the company to pay for unpaid minimum wages and overtime, plus interest.

The company, the lawsuit states, “was made aware of its obligations” by two prior investigations.

The state has fined Henry’s $900,000 for labor-law violations.

Henry's Turkey Service leased a city-owned house for the men in Atalissa and arranged for them to work at a meatpacking plant in nearby West Liberty.

In response to questions by a family member and a newspaper reporter, state investigators swooped down on the boarded-up house in February and removed 21 mentally disabled men who were living there. The state fire marshal ordered the house closed.

Officials have said West Liberty Foods paid Henry’s in a lump sum for the worker’s wages, from which Henry’s then allegedly deducted the costs for the men's housing, food and care.

Some of the 21 men removed from the Atalissa home are now living with relatives, but at least 18 were moved to care centers in the Waterloo area.

Henry’s was not licensed as a care facility and operated that way for many years.