US funeral home owners accused of spending pandemic relief funds on holidays, cosmetic surgery, jewellery and cryptocurrency | US News

Jon and Carie Hallford have been arrested late final yr after the invention of virtually 200 our bodies improperly saved, however now they face new fees.

The homeowners of a US funeral house have been accused of spending almost $900,000 (£723,000) in pandemic reduction funds on issues similar to holidays, beauty surgical procedure, jewelry and cryptocurrency.

Jon and Carie Hallford, homeowners of Return To Nature Funeral House in Colorado, already face greater than 200 legal fees linked to final yr’s discovery of 190 decaying our bodies in a bug-infested storage constructing.

These fees embrace corpse abuse, cash laundering, theft and forgery, together with allegations they gave households dry concrete as a substitute of cremated ashes, collected cash for burials and cremations they by no means supplied, and buried the flawed physique on two events.

Now they face 15 additional fees alleging they spent $882,300 (£708,000) in pandemic reduction funds on gadgets together with two automobiles – a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti price over $120,000, journeys to California, Florida and Las Vegas, $31,000 in cryptocurrency, laser physique sculpting, and luxurious items from retailers similar to Gucci and Tiffany & Co.

The couple appeared in a federal court docket on Monday, the place the prosecution argued they have been a flight threat, having fled to Oklahoma final October after the decaying our bodies have been discovered and once more earlier than their arrest on state fees in November.

The decide didn’t resolve whether or not they need to be launched pending trial, as a substitute scheduling one other listening to for Thursday.

The invention of the 190 our bodies, a few of which had been there since 2019, shocked the state of Colorado, which has a number of the US’s weakest funeral house laws.

Considerations have been raised way back to 2020 in regards to the enterprise’s improper storage of our bodies however regulators didn’t act, permitting the variety of our bodies to develop to just about 200.

It was solely after neighbours complained in regards to the scent that authorities regarded extra intently on the modest 2,500-square foot constructing in Penrose, about 30 miles south of Colorado Springs.

For the reason that our bodies have been found, dozens of households have been advised the ashes they got couldn’t have been the stays of family members.