That boss, Ronald M. Jones, is a six-foot-four, 250-pound homegrown son who spins through town in a muscular Cadillac Escalade and flashes cash he gets from Florida farmers to employ laborers at the lowest, dirtiest rung of the chain. He did not respond to multiple interview requests.

START OF A JOURNEY Promise of work and pay is irresistible - and elusive

Brown's journey to Jones began on a Sunday in Orlando, when another farm recruiter approached him as he lounged in a park. There's work up north, the man said. Honest day, honest pay.

Brown hopped in, traveling 100 miles to Hastings and neighboring East Palatka, where he ultimately lived in a squalid, illegal hellhole for farmworkers operated by Jones and stood for long hours sorting potatoes for a few dollars' pay.

Brown came to the job poor and said boss Jones made him poorer, fronting him cash for food and supplies, but demanding $1 in interest for most every $1 loaned. With no car and little cash, he was captive to the debts - struggling to work enough hours to pay back the 100 percent interest.

Five former workers said in interviews that Jones forced the same arrangement on them.

``It was the only way I could eat,'' Brown said. ``This farm thing, you put in the work, but the money just don't match the work.''

In East Palatka, he slept in a decrepit trailer along with nine other farmworkers in a trashy compound that housed up to two dozen workers. His trailer had no running water and no air conditioning.

When workers returned to the camp after long days, area drug dealers and bootleggers showed up, Brown said, the bootleggers selling 65-cent beer for $1.25.

``Everybody makes money off farmworkers,'' he said at a nearby park days after fleeing. ``It seems like when farmworkers come to town, everything goes up 20 percent.''

Crew leader Jones was employed by Bulls-Hit Ranch & Farm, maker of gourmet potato chips, to provide farm laborers like Brown.

William Oglesby, 50, a one-time truck driver, also worked at Bulls-Hit under Jones and lived in the same compound.

HIRING OF FARMHANDS Homeless people in park described as `easy targets'

Like Brown, Oglesby had been recruited where the homeless congregate, at Confederate Park in Jacksonville. ``Most of them were easy targets,'' he said.

He said he wasn't homeless but needed work. ``They told me I could go with them today and work,'' he said. ``And they said I could make some money. But money, I haven't seen.''

One week, Oglesby calculated, he should have earned $300 by sorting potatoes and packing them into trucks, rising at 5:30 a.m. and sometimes not returning to the camp until 10 p.m.

His pay stub from Jones showed $154.51. But Oglesby - like Brown - said even the pay stub did not reflect what actually went into his pocket. To understand how that could happen, follow the money.

Bulls-Hit President Thomas R. Lee said he would write Jones a check each week to cover the work completed. But then the boss, not the farmer, was responsible for paying workers from that bounty.

``He pays them, I don't,'' Lee said. ``He has a daily record of what he pays the crew.''

Lee said he told Jones not to make any loans at Bulls-Hit, since such transactions on farm property could reflect upon the farmer. ``I told him that whatever he did off my property was his business,'' Lee said.

Critics say this arrangement is ripe for abuse. When crew bosses control the cash, they are more apt to cheat the workers below them. Simply put, every $1 they skimp from workers is an extra $1 in their pocket. Jones' former workers say they were cheated of thousands.

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