Investigators described discovering decaying our bodies stacked atop one another all through a dilapidated, bug-infested constructing.
A decide within the US state of Colorado has handed a funeral dwelling proprietor, who stashed 191 useless our bodies on his premises, a 20-year jail sentence for dishonest prospects and defrauding the federal authorities.
Federal prosecutors had sought a 15-year sentence for Jon Hallford, the proprietor of Return to Nature Funeral House in Colorado, the place he and his spouse, Carie Hallford, saved our bodies between 2019 and 2023 and despatched households pretend ashes.
At Friday’s listening to, US District Choose Nina Wang stated the circumstances and scale of John Hallford’s crimes, in addition to the emotional harm to households he inflicted, warranted an extended sentence.
“This isn’t an strange fraud case,” Choose Wang stated.
Investigators had been referred to as to the dilapidated, insect-infested constructing within the small city of Penrose, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) south of Denver, in 2023 after reviews of an “abhorrent odor” coming from the property.
At trial, investigators described discovering the our bodies stacked on high of one another and being unable to maneuver into some rooms as a result of they had been piled so excessive with human stays.
FBI brokers additionally needed to put boards down so they may stroll across the crime scene and above the bodily fluid that had pooled on the bottom.
The morbid discovery by investigators in 2023 revealed for the primary time to many households that the ashes they’d obtained from Return to Nature had been pretend. Courtroom paperwork confirmed Hallford had despatched households urns stuffed with dry concrete combine, and in two instances, the unsuitable physique had been buried.
In separate expenses, Jon Hallford has pleaded responsible to 191 counts of corpse abuse in state court docket. He’s scheduled to be sentenced for these expenses in August.
Carie Hallford is scheduled to go to trial within the federal case in September. That very same month, she’s going to attend her subsequent listening to within the state case, during which she’s additionally charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse.
COVID-19 fraud
At Friday’s listening to, Jon Hallford was additionally jailed for defrauding the US federal authorities out of practically $900,000 in emergency monetary help supplied to Individuals coping with the financial affect of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a information assertion, the US Lawyer’s Workplace within the District of Colorado stated the Hallfords had “defrauded the Small Enterprise Administration by fraudulent COVID-19 mortgage purposes”.
Federal prosecutors stated the Hallfords syphoned the cash and spent it, together with prospects’ funds, on SUVs price greater than $120,000, together with $31,000 in cryptocurrency, and luxurious objects from shops like Gucci and Tiffany & Co.
Along with his jail sentence, Jon Hallford was additionally “ordered to pay $1,070,413.74 in restitution for a conspiracy to commit wire fraud”, based on the District of Colorado.
The District of Colorado assertion stated the Hallfords had “collected greater than $130,000 from grieving households for funeral companies that had been by no means supplied”.
“As an alternative of guaranteeing correct disposition of the stays, Hallford allowed our bodies to build up in varied states of decay and decomposition contained in the funeral dwelling’s facility,” it stated.
In keeping with an order suspending the house’s registration as a funeral institution, Jon Hallford had claimed when the our bodies had been found “that he practises taxidermy” on the property.
In court docket earlier than the sentencing, Jon Hallford advised the decide that he opened Return to Nature to make a optimistic affect on individuals’s lives, however “then every thing bought utterly uncontrolled”.
“I’m so deeply sorry for my actions,” he stated. “I nonetheless hate myself for what I’ve executed.”