CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio -- A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Cuyahoga Falls televangelist Ernest Angley and a buffet he owns in the Akron suburb to pay more than $388,000 in damages and back wages to a group of employees that the U.S. Department of Labor found worked as unpaid volunteers.

U.S. District Judge Benita Pearson wrote that testimony at a trial held in October and November showed that Angley and his managers at Cathedral Buffet encouraged members of his church, Grace Cathedral, to work at the buffet without pay. The for-profit restaurant used volunteers to save money and the volunteers felt pressured to provide free labor, meaning they should have been paid for their work, Benita Pearson wrote.

"... The volunteers' work was clearly integral to the Buffet's operations, in that they did work that was necessary to the operation of a restaurant, such as cleaning, bussing tables, stocking the buffet, chopping vegetables, and operating the cash registers," the judge wrote. "It is hard to fathom that a restaurant could operate without such work being completed."

(You can read the judge's ruling here or at the bottom of this story.)

The Labor Department filed suit against the 95-year-old televangelist and the buffet in 2015 following an investigation spurred by an article in the Akron Beacon Journal. Its lawsuit said Angley and the buffet violated the Fair Labor Standards Act through its use of volunteers and did not document the volunteers' work.

Angley maintains he and the buffet staff did nothing wrong and that the claims put forth by the government violate the First Amendment.

The Labor Department also cited Angley in 1999 for the same thing. The buffet paid $37,000 in back wages at the time and agreed to comply with labor laws going forward.

Of the amount Pearson assessed against Angley and the buffet, half will go towards back wages of the employees, while the other half were assessed as damages, since the judge determined the defendants acted in "bad faith" by reverting back to using unpaid labor.

Pearson also indicated that she would issue an injunction barring Angley and the buffet from misclassifying workers as volunteers and keeping inaccurate employment records.

Lawrence Bach, an attorney representing Angley and the buffet, said he expects his clients will wish to appeal the decision.

"I don't believe the facts as asserted (by the judge) are supported by the record," Bach said.

Pearson noted in her findings that members of Angley's flock testified that they felt pressured into volunteering at the buffet.

"In his announcements, Reverend Angley would suggest that Church members had an obligation to provide their labor to the Buffet, in service to God, and that a failure to offer their labor to the Buffet -- or to refuse to respond to phone calls...seeking volunteers -- would be the same as failing God," Pearson wrote.

Following the Labor Department's 1999 investigation, Angley and his supervisors appeared to comply with the law. At some point, though, Angley told his staff that workers would need to give their paychecks back due to financial hardships at the buffet, Pearson wrote.

Two volunteers testified they still had to pay taxes on the paychecks they returned, the judge wrote.

Pearson was unpersuaded by arguments from Angley that the buffet served a religious purpose.

Bach said he does not believe Pearson's findings that many volunteers felt coerced into working for free will hold up on appeal. He said he spoke with about 75 people who worked at the buffet who said they didn't feel pressured to work there.

As for statements Angley made to his flock, Bach said, "what he says from the pulpit is protected speech."