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Colorado funeral home owners accused of misspending nearly US$900,000 in pandemic relief funds and living lavishly, all while allegedly storing 190 decaying bodies in a building and sending grieving families fake ashes, pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal fraud charges centred around defrauding customers.
Jon and Carie Hallford each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The plea agreement, which stipulates that prosecutors will not request over 15 years imprisonment, still has to be approved by the judge.
The owners of Return to Nature Funeral Home, about an hour’s drive south of Denver, had each been charged with 14 other federal offences related to defrauding the US government and the funeral home’s customers, which would be dismissed under the plea agreement. More than 200 criminal counts are already pending against them in Colorado state court, including for corpse abuse and forgery.
The Hallfords used the pandemic aid and customers’ payments to buy a GMC Yukon and Infiniti that together were worth more than US$120,000, laser body sculpting, trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, US$31,000 in cryptocurrency and luxury items at shops including Gucci and Tiffany & Co, according to court documents.
Jon Hallford is being represented by the federal public defenders office, which does not comment on cases. Calls and emails to Carie Hallford’s lawyer in the federal case have not been returned, and her lawyer in the state case, Michael Stuzynski, declined to comment.