Three Charged in Alleged Forced Labor Scheme at Cartersville Flooring Plant; Case Undecided
Federal prosecutors accuse the owner of Wellmade Industries and two others of luring Chinese nationals to the plant on B-1 and L-1 visas. The charges are accusations only: the case is at the charging stage, no plea, trial, verdict or sentence has been reported, and the matter remains open and undecided.
Three people were on August 12, 2026 in a federal forced labor case centered on Wellmade Industries, a flooring manufacturer in Cartersville, Georgia — a case that, on the reporting available, remains open and undecided. Atlanta News First reported the August 12, 2026 announcement; Atlanta News First, WRGA News and WSB-TV all reported that the three have been .
**Status of the case: undecided.** This matter is at the charging stage, the earliest point in a federal prosecution, and nothing in the available reporting resolves it. There is no plea, no trial, no verdict, no acquittal, no dismissal and no sentence on record here. The charges are accusations only; no defendant has been convicted, and each is presumed innocent unless and until guilt is proven in court. A reader coming to this story later should assume the outcome is still unknown rather than infer one from anything below: this report records an accusation and its status, not a result.
The defendants, as reported by the three outlets, are Zhu Chen, 60, of Cartersville, Georgia, the owner of Wellmade Industries; Jiayi Chen, 31, of Cartersville, Georgia; and Jianjun Lu, 55, of China, described as a Chinese national. All three are with forced labor and conspiracy to commit forced labor, with an alien harboring count against Zhu Chen only.
On the potential penalty, the sources are close but do not word it identically, and the difference is kept here rather than smoothed over. WSB-TV and WRGA News reported a . Atlanta News First reported that, No penalty applies unless there is a conviction, and none has been reported.
The three accounts of the alleged conduct overlap but are not identical, and none is treated here as outweighing the others. WRGA News reported that the government alleges Zhu Chen, Jiayi Chen and Jianjun Lu recruited Chinese nationals through false pretenses to enter the United States on B-1 and L-1 visas to work at Wellmade Industries in Cartersville, then made them work twelve-hour shifts six days a week in unsafe factory conditions, paid them less than promised, threatened deportation and sizeable debts if they stopped working, housed them in overcrowded and dirty residences, and harbored aliens in residences owned by Wellmade knowing they lacked legal status. WSB-TV reported that the Justice Department alleges the defendants lured Chinese nationals to work at Wellmade Industries in Cartersville "through false pretenses" on B-1 and L-1 visas; that once the workers arrived they were forced to work 12-hour shifts, six days a week, in unsafe conditions, paid less than promised, and kept in overcrowded and dirty conditions; and that the defendants allegedly threatened the foreign workers with "physical violence, deportation, and crippling debt" if they stopped working at the factory. Atlanta News First reported that prosecutors allege the same recruitment of Chinese nationals through false pretenses on B-1 and L-1 visas, 12-hour shifts six days a week in unsafe conditions, pay lower than promised, threats of violence, deportation and crippling debt if they stopped working, and housing in overcrowded and dirty homes owned by the company despite knowing the workers lacked legal status.
The clearest divergence among the accounts is over the alleged threats: WRGA News reported alleged threats of deportation and sizeable debts, while WSB-TV and Atlanta News First reported that the alleged threats also included physical violence. The available reporting does not settle which description is accurate, and this story does not choose between them. All of it is allegation.
WRGA News and Atlanta News First reported that the case comes from the . WRGA News reported that the case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the Bartow County Sheriff's Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
No response from the defendants or from lawyers for them appears in the available reporting. Nor does that reporting show any further step in the case beyond the charges: as of the material underlying this story, the prosecution is pending and undecided.
Added WRGA News as a third source, including its account of the alleged conduct, the investigating agencies (HSI, Bartow County Sheriff's Office, GBI), Wellmade's description as a flooring manufacturer, and its agreement on the 20-year maximum.
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