Colorado funeral home owners indicted for COVID fraud

Content of the article

DENVER (AP) — A couple who owned a Colorado funeral home last year, where authorities found 190 decomposing bodies, are facing federal charges for not spending nearly $900,000 on vacations, cosmetic surgery, jewelry and other personal expenses for pandemic relief, according to a lawsuit. documents closed on Monday.

Content of the article

The indictment confirms allegations by state prosecutors that John and Carey Hallford gave the families dry concrete instead of cremated ashes and that the couple buried the wrong body twice.

Content of the article

The couple also collected more than $130,000 from families for cremation and burial services, the indictment said.

The 15 federal grand jury indictments are in addition to more than 200 criminal cases pending against the Hallfords in Colorado state courts for embezzlement, money laundering, theft and forgery.

The federal charges carry a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The owners of Back to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs walked into a federal courtroom in handcuffs Monday as they made their first appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott Warholak.

Content of the article

Content of the article

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Neff said the couple was a flight risk after fleeing to Oklahoma last October when the decomposing bodies were first found and before being arrested on state charges on Nov. 8.

“They just evaporated from the community,” Neff said.

The judge did not immediately rule on whether the couple should be released pending trial. He scheduled a hearing for Thursday.

Carey Hallford's attorney, Chaz Meliherczyk, said he will contest the arrest at his next court appearance. John Hallford's public defender told the judge that her husband had complied with the terms of their plea agreement in the state case and did not need to be arrested.

Before the new indictment was unsealed, public records showed the Hallfords were deep in debt — even as they spent a lot of money on themselves, facing lawsuits over evictions and unpaid cremations.

Content of the article

According to the indictment, the couple used $882,300 in the pandemic relief fund to buy cars, lunches, tuition for their children and cryptocurrency. The fraud involved three loans taken out between March 2020 and October 2021, authorities said.

Previously released court documents on state abuse related to the corpse case provide more details about what they spent the money on.

They bought a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti worth more than $120,000 — enough to double the cost of cremating all the bodies found at their business last October, according to FBI agent Andrew Cohen's previous court testimony.

According to court documents, they paid $31,000 for trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, as well as cryptocurrency, laser body sculpting and luxury retailers such as Gucci and Tiffany & Co.

Content of the article

The couple has yet to make a statement about the state's abuse of the corpses allegations.

Cary Hallford's state attorney, Michael Stuzinski, declined to comment on the federal charges. John Hallford's attorney in the state case is with the public defender's office, which does not comment on pending cases.

The Hallfords left a trail of unpaid bills, disgruntled landlords and unresolved business disputes.

The couple once told their former landlord they would pay their rent while being paid for work they did for the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the coronavirus pandemic. The company's website features the logos of FEMA and the Department of Defense.

FEMA said they had no contracts with the funeral home. A search of the Department of Defense database also revealed no contracts with the Back to Nature program.

Content of the article

Public records show the company failed to pay more than $5,000 in property taxes in 2022 at one of its locations. According to public records and attorney Lisa Epps of Wilbert Funeral Service Crematory, the business was shut down last year by a $21,000 judgment for not paying for “a couple hundred cremations.”

The Hallfords' alleged lies, money laundering, forgery and manipulation have destroyed hundreds of grieving family members over the past four years.

The 190 bodies were found last year in an insect-infested warehouse in the small town of Penrose, about two hours south of Denver. Some waste has been removed since 2019.

An Associated Press investigation found the Hallfords sent fake ashes and fake cremation records to families doing business with them. They apparently wrote on the death certificates issued to the families that the cremation with the ashes was done by Wilbert Funeral Services, which at the time refused to perform the funeral.

Content of the article

When the decomposing bodies were discovered, the families learned that the ashes they received could not be the remains of their loved ones.

In 2020, there were concerns about businesses not storing corpses properly. But there was no oversight by regulators, allowing the body count to grow to 200 over the next three years.

Colorado has some of the weakest funeral home regulations in the US, with funeral home operators in the state not required to graduate from high school, let alone study or pass a mortuary science exam. Hallford's case and others in recent years have prompted Colorado lawmakers to introduce legislation to increase regulatory oversight to match or exceed other states.

Content of the article