DENVER –
A couple who owned a Colorado funeral home where authorities discovered 190 decomposing bodies last year were indicted on federal charges of wasting nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds on vacations, cosmetic surgery, jewelry and other personal expenses, documents show. judicial documents revealed on Monday.
The indictment reaffirms state prosecutors’ allegations that Jon and Carie Hallford gave the families dry concrete instead of cremated ashes and alleges the couple buried the wrong body on two occasions.
The couple also collected more than $130,000 from families for cremations and burial services they never provided, according to the indictment.
The 15 charges returned by the federal grand jury are in addition to more than 200 criminal charges already pending against the Hallfords in Colorado state court for abuse of corpses, money laundering, theft and forgery.
The federal crimes carry potential penalties of 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines, according to the indictment.
On Monday, the owners of Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs entered a federal courtroom bound in shackles as they made an initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott Varholak.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Neff argued that the couple were flight risks, after they fled to Oklahoma last October when the decomposing bodies were first discovered and before their arrest on state charges on Nov. 8.
“They just disappeared from the community,” Neff said.
The judge did not immediately decide whether the couple should be released pending trial. He set an arraignment hearing for Thursday.
Carie Hallford’s attorney, Chaz Melihercik, said he would argue against detention at the next hearing. Jon Hallford’s public defender told the judge that her husband had been following her bail conditions in the state case and that detention was unnecessary.
Before the new allegation was revealed, public records showed that the Hallfords had been plagued by debt, facing evictions and lawsuits for unpaid cremations even as they spent lavishly on themselves.
The indictment alleges that the couple used $882,300 in pandemic relief funds to purchase items that also included a vehicle, dinners, tuition for their son and cryptocurrency. The fraud involved three loans obtained between March 2020 and October 2021, authorities said.
Previously released court documents about the state corpse abuse case reveal more details about what they were spending the money on.
They purchased a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti that together were worth more than $120,000, enough to cover double the cremation costs of all the bodies found on the premises of their business last October, according to previous court testimony by the FBI agent. Andrew Cohen.
They also paid for trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, as well as $31,000 in cryptocurrency, laser body sculptures and purchases at luxury stores such as Gucci and Tiffany & Co., according to court documents.
The couple has not yet pleaded guilty to abuse of corpses by the state.
Carie Hallford’s attorney in the state case, Michael Stuzynski, declined to comment on the federal indictment. Jon Hallford’s attorney in the state case works for the public defender’s office, which does not comment on pending cases.
The Hallfords left in their wake a trail of unpaid bills, disgruntled landlords and unresolved business disputes.
The couple once told a former landlord that they would pay rent when they were paid for work they had done for the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the coronavirus pandemic. The company’s website featured FEMA and Department of Defense logos.
FEMA has said they did not have any contract with the funeral home. A search of the Department of Defense database also showed no contracts with Return to Nature.
The company failed to pay more than $5,000 in 2022 property taxes at one of its locations, public records show. Then last year, the company received a $21,000 judgment for failing to pay for “a couple hundred cremations,” according to public records and attorney Lisa Epps of Wilbert Funeral Services crematorium.
The Hallfords’ alleged lies, money laundering, forgery and manipulation over the past four years devastated hundreds of grieving relatives.
The 190 bodies were discovered last year in a bug-infested storage building in the small town of Penrose, about two hours south of Denver. Some of the remains had languished since 2019.
An Associated Press investigation found that the Hallfords likely sent fake ashes and fabricated cremation records to families who did business with them. They appear to have written on the death certificates given to the families, along with the ashes, that the cremations were performed by Wilbert Funeral Services, who denied performing them for the funeral home at the time.
When the decomposing bodies were identified, the families learned that the ashes they had received could not have been the remains of their loved ones.
Already in 2020, there were concerns about the company’s improper storage of bodies. But there was no follow-up from regulators, allowing the collection of bodies to grow to nearly 200 over the next three years.
Colorado has some of the weakest funeral home regulations in the U.S. Funeral home operators in the state don’t have to graduate from high school, let alone study mortuary science or pass an exam. The Hallfords case and others in recent years prompted Colorado lawmakers to introduce legislation to strengthen oversight with rules that are in line with or surpass those of other states.
Brown reported from Billings, Montana.