DENVER (AP) — A Colorado funeral residence proprietor who stashed almost 190 useless our bodies in a decrepit constructing and despatched grieving households pretend ashes acquired the utmost doable sentence of 20 years in jail on Friday, for dishonest clients and defrauding the federal authorities out of almost $900,000 in COVID-19 help.
Jon Hallford, proprietor of Return to Nature Funeral House, pleaded responsible to conspiracy to commit wire fraud final yr. Prosecutors sought a 15-year sentence and Hallford’s legal professional requested for 10 years.
Decide Nina Wang mentioned that though the case centered on a single fraud cost, the circumstances and scale of Hallford’s crime and the emotional harm to households warranted the longer sentence.
“This isn’t an strange fraud case,” she mentioned.
In courtroom earlier than the sentencing, Hallford informed the decide that he opened Return to Nature to make a optimistic influence in folks’s lives, “then all the things bought utterly uncontrolled, particularly me.”
“I’m so deeply sorry for my actions,” he mentioned. “I nonetheless hate myself for what I’ve performed.”
Hallford shall be sentenced in August in a separate state case wherein he pleaded responsible to 191 counts of corpse abuse.
Hallford and co-owner Carie Hallford have been accused of storing the our bodies between 2019 and 2023 and sending households pretend ashes. Investigators described discovering the our bodies in 2023 stacked atop one another all through a squat, bug-infested constructing in Penrose, a small city a few two-hour drive south of Denver.
The morbid discovery revealed to many households that their family members weren’t cremated and that the ashes they’d unfold or cherished have been pretend. In two instances, the unsuitable physique was buried, in line with courtroom paperwork.
Many households mentioned it undid their grieving processes. Some kin had nightmares, others have struggled with guilt, and at the least one puzzled about their beloved one’s soul.
Among the many victims who spoke throughout Friday’s sentencing was a boy named Colton Sperry. Together with his head poking simply above the lectern, he informed the decide about his grandmother, who Sperry mentioned was a second mom to him and died in 2019.
Her physique languished contained in the Return to Nature constructing for 4 years till the invention, which plunged Sperry into melancholy. He mentioned he informed his mother and father on the time, “If I die too, I may meet my grandma in heaven and speak to her once more.”
His mother and father introduced him to the hospital for a psychological well being examine, which led to remedy and an emotional help canine.
“I miss my grandma a lot,” he informed the decide by means of tears.
Federal prosecutors accused each Hallfords of pandemic help fraud, siphoning the help and spending it and buyer’s funds on a GMC Yukon and Infiniti value over $120,000 mixed, together with $31,000 in cryptocurrency, luxurious gadgets from shops like Gucci and Tiffany & Co., and even laser physique sculpting.
Derrick Johnson informed the decide that he travelled 3,000 miles to testify over how his his mom was “thrown right into a festering sea of loss of life.”
“I lie awake questioning, was she bare? Was she stacked on high of others like lumber?” mentioned Johnson.
“Whereas the our bodies rotted in secret, (the Hallfords) lived, they laughed they usually dined” he added. “My mothers cremation cash seemingly helped pay for a cocktail, a day on the spa, a firstclass flight.”
Hallford’s legal professional, Laura H. Suelau, requested for a decrease sentence of 10 years within the listening to Friday, saying that Hallford “is aware of he was unsuitable, he admitted he was unsuitable” and hasn’t provided an excuse. His sentencing within the state case is scheduled in August.
Asking for a 15 yr sentence for Hallford, Assistant U.S. Lawyer Tim Neff described the scene contained in the constructing. Investigators couldn’t transfer into some rooms as a result of the our bodies have been piled so excessive and in varied states of decay. FBI brokers needed to put boards down so they might stroll above the fluid, which was later pumped out.
Carie Hallford is scheduled to go to trial within the federal case in September, the identical month as her subsequent listening to within the state case wherein she’s additionally charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse.
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