Fraud Indictments, Abrupt Closure Leave Hundreds of Jasper Rubber Workers Uncertain

Hundreds of employees at the Fulton County plant tied to Jasper Rubber Products were left suddenly unemployed when First Brands LLC closed the facility a month ahead of its scheduled Feb. 27 shutdown, company paperwork and worker accounts show. Federal indictments have been filed charging former CEO Patrick James, his brother Edward James and a third Northeast Ohio man with multiple counts of wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering in connection with the company's collapse.

Worker Cory Mick, who said he worked at the plant for 17 months, described how employees first learned of the closure on or around December 29 but then arrived to find the plant inaccessible. Mick said workers came in “Tuesday to find locked doors and no one around,” and that “we stood around and waited and there was no lights on, no nothing. And I went home and then in the morning there there it was on the news.”

Mick recounted worsening production and shortages in the weeks before the shutdown, detailing safety and basic-supply failures on the shop floor. “We had nothing to perform on. We had no material. We had no PPE. We we didn't even have toilet paper in the facility. We had no drinking water,” he said. Mick also reported that some employees “were told that they had to leave immediately, that they were fired,” underscoring an abrupt end to operations that had been, until recently, scheduled for late February.

Corporate filings and a worker adjustment and retraining notification letter submitted by First Brands LLC state the early closure resulted from “significant unforeseeable circumstances,” but the company has not provided further public detail in the documents reviewed by employees. The research notes indicate First Brands Group is identified as the parent company of Jasper Rubber Products and that First Brands LLC filed for bankruptcy about three months before employees say they were informed of the closure.

UAW Region 2B expressed concern about the ripple effects beyond the plant. Regional director David Green warned of broader consequences, saying, “My fear is a horrific way for those members and the whole community. This is going to have an impact on auto supply chain and part suppliers um really across the entire country. I” — a remark reflecting union anxiety over supplier disruptions tied to the plant's sudden halt.

The human toll is immediate for workers and their families. A family voice tied to Mick — identified in reporting as “for Mick, his girlfriend, and their two kids” — said the abrupt closure brought worries about insurance and lost pay a month earlier than expected: “I mean, it's stressful what our next move is, what we're going to have to save on. It's just it's unpleasant.” With hundreds affected and key legal and financial filings pending public release, Jasper-area households face uncertainty over final paychecks, benefits and the local supply-chain fallout.