According to the court, a couple who own a funeral home in Colorado where the government discovered 190 decomposing bodies last year have been accused through the federal government of misspending about $900,000 of the pandemic relief budget on vacations, cosmetic surgery, jewelry and other non-public expenses. documents released Monday.
The indictment reaffirms state prosecutors’ allegations that Jon and Carie Hallford gave the families dried concrete instead of cremated ashes and alleges that the couple buried the frame twice.
The couple also collected more than $130,000 from families for cremation and burial that they never provided, the indictment states.
The 15 charges presented to the federal grand jury are in addition to the more than 200 criminal charges already pending against the Hallfords in Colorado state court for abuse of corpses, money laundering, theft and forgery.
Federal crimes carry possible consequences of up to 20 years and a $250,000 fine, according to the indictment.
On Monday, members of the Return to Nature funeral home in Colorado Springs entered a federal courtroom in chains as they made their first appearance before U. S. District Judge Scott Varholak.
Assistant U. S. Attorney Tim Neff argued that the couple was threatening to flee, after they allegedly fled to Oklahoma last October when the decomposing bodies were first discovered and before they were arrested on state land on Nov. 8.
“They’ve disappeared from the community,” Neff said.
The ruling on whether the couple deserves to be released pending trial was not long in coming. He set an arraignment hearing for Thursday.
Carie Hallford’s attorney, Chaz Melihercik, said he would oppose the detention at the next hearing. Jon Hallford’s public defender, Kilie Latendresse, said at sentencing that he had served the conditions of his bail in the state case and that detention is not necessary.
The new fees and fees have caused more heartbreak for those who have sent their loved ones to the funeral home.
Each new revelation about the case stuns Tanya Wilson, who hired Return to Nature to cremate her mother’s remains. Wilson scattered the ashes with his circle of relatives in Hawaii. After this grim discovery, Wilson discovered that the ashes were not those of his mother, whose body has since been known among the 190 decomposing bodies.
Hundreds of relatives, like Wilson, had the idea of letting their loved ones rest or hugging their ashes just to have that remedy ripped from them.
“Honestly, I feel like I have whiplash and I can’t hold back an emotion long enough to process it,” Wilson said by phone.
Before the new allegation was revealed, public records showed the Hallfords were riddled with debt, facing evictions and lawsuits over unpaid cremations, even as they spent lavishly on themselves.
The indictment alleges that the couple used $882,300 from the pandemic relief budget to acquire parts that also included a vehicle, dinners, their children’s fees, and cryptocurrency. The fraud concerned 3 loans received between March 2020 and October 2021, the government said.
Previously released court documents related to the state’s abuse of corpses case reveal more major points about the expenses they spent cash on.
They bought a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti that together were worth more than $120,000, enough to cover twice the cost of cremating all the bodies discovered at their company’s facility last October, according to earlier court testimony from FBI agent Andrew Cohen.
“It’s just disgusting for lack of a longer timeframe, just reading all the cash they had,” Wilson said. “Just the value of the two cars he bought. . . It’s enough to make those families smart. “
The Hallfords also paid for trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, as well as $31,000 in cryptocurrency, laser frame sculptures and purchases at luxury stores such as Gucci and Tiffany.
The couple has yet to testify for the abuse of state fees for the corpses.
The Hallfords left behind a trail of unpaid bills, disgruntled landlords, and unresolved business disputes.
The couple once told a former landlord that they would pay their rent when they got paid for the paintings they had done for the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company’s website featured logos of FEMA and the Department of Defense.
FEMA said it does not have a contract with the funeral home. A search of the MoD database also does not have a contract with Return to Nature.
The company paid no more than $5,000 in taxes on assets in 2022 at one of its sites, according to public records. Then, last year, the company was fined $21,000 for failing to pay for “a few hundred cremations,” according to public records and attorney Lisa. Epps of Wilbert Funeral Services.
The Hallfords’ alleged lies, money laundering, forgery and manipulation over the past four years have devastated many of their grieving family members.
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 of the remains had been lying around since 2019.
An investigation by The Associated Press found that the Hallfords most likely sent fake ashes and fabricated cremation records to families who did business with them. They appear to have written on the death certificate given to the families, along with the ashes, that the cremations were done through Wilbert Funeral Services, which denied manufacturing them for the funeral home at the time.
Once the decomposing bodies were identified, the families learned that the ashes they had earned might not be those of their loved ones. Court documents state that at least some were made of dry concrete.
As early as 2020, concerns were raised about the company’s body garage, but there was no follow-up from regulators, causing the body collection to grow to just about two hundred over the next three years.
Colorado has some of the weakest funeral home regulations in the country. Funeral home operators in the state don’t want to download a high school diploma, take a mortuary science exam, or pass a test.
The Hallfords case and others in recent years have prompted Colorado lawmakers to introduce oversight laws with regulations that are in line with or better than those in other states. These expenses are lately under attention through the state legislature.
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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.