The owners of a US funeral home have been accused of spending almost $900,000 (£723,000) in pandemic relief funds on things like holidays, cosmetic surgery, jewelry and cryptocurrencies.
Jon and Carie Hallford, owners of the Return To Nature funeral home in Colorado, already face more than 200 criminal charges in connection with the discovery last year of 190 decomposing bodies in a bug-infested storage building.
These accusations include abuse of corpses, money laundering, theft and forgery, including allegations that they gave families dry concrete instead of cremated ashes, collected money for burials and cremations they never performed, and buried the wrong body on two occasions.
They now face a further 15 charges, alleging they spent $882,300 (£708,000) in pandemic relief funds on items including two vehicles – a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti worth more than $120,000, trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, $31,000 in cryptocurrency, laser body sculpting. and luxury goods from retailers like Gucci and Tiffany & Co.
The couple appeared in federal court on Monday, where prosecutors argued they posed a flight risk, having fled to Oklahoma last October after the decomposing bodies were found and again before their arrest on state charges in November.
The judge did not rule on whether they should be released pending trial, instead setting another hearing for Thursday.
Return To Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, Colorado. Photo: Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette/AP
The discovery of the 190 bodies, some of which had been there since 2019, shocked the state of Colorado, which has some of the weakest funeral regulations in the US.
As early as 2020, concerns were raised about the company’s improper storage of bodies, but regulators failed to act, allowing the number of bodies to grow to nearly 200.
It was only after neighbors complained about the smell that authorities took a closer look at the modest 2,500-square-foot building in Penrose, about 30 miles south of Colorado Springs.
Since the bodies were discovered, dozens of families have been told that the ashes they received could not be the remains of loved ones.
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