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The proprietor of a Colorado funeral dwelling obtained the utmost jail sentence after he was discovered responsible of stashing almost 190 our bodies in a decrepit constructing and sending households faux ashes as an alternative of their family members.
Jon Hallford, proprietor of Return to Nature Funeral Dwelling, was sentenced to twenty years in jail on Friday for dishonest prospects and defrauding the federal authorities out of almost $900,000 in COVID-19 help. He pleaded responsible to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in federal courtroom final yr.
Individually, Hallford pleaded responsible to 191 counts of corpse abuse in state courtroom and might be sentenced in August.
Throughout Friday’s listening to, federal prosecutors requested for a 15-year sentence whereas Hallford’s lawyer requested 10 years.
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Jon Hallford, proprietor of Return to Nature Funeral Dwelling, was sentenced for dishonest prospects and defrauding the federal authorities out of almost $900,000 in COVID-19 help. (Muskogee County Sheriff’s Workplace)
Decide Nina Wang mentioned that regardless of the case solely specializing in a single fraud cost, the circumstances and scale of Hallford’s crime, in addition to the emotional impression on the households, warranted the utmost sentence.
“This isn’t an atypical fraud case,” she mentioned.
Forward of the sentencing, Hallford advised the choose that he opened the funeral dwelling to make a optimistic impression on individuals’s lives earlier than “all the pieces 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 and his spouse, Carie, have been accused of storing the our bodies between 2019 and 2023 and sending households faux ashes. Investigators discovered the our bodies in 2023 stacked on high of one another all through a squat, bug-infested constructing in Penrose, Colorado.
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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.
Many households discovered after the invention that their family members weren’t cremated and that the ashes they’d obtained have been faux. In two instances, the flawed physique was buried.
Jon Hallford obtained the utmost attainable sentence of 20 years in jail. (AP)
Some relations had nightmares, others have struggled with guilt and not less than one questioned about their liked one’s soul.
Sufferer Colton Sperry spoke throughout Friday’s sentencing and advised the choose about his grandmother, who he mentioned was a second mom to him and died in 2019, in accordance with The Related Press.
Her physique was contained in the Return to Nature constructing for 4 years till the invention, which Sperry mentioned pushed him into melancholy.
He mentioned he advised his dad and mom on the time, “If I die too, I might meet my grandma in heaven and speak to her once more.” He was finally taken 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 advised the choose in tears.
Federal prosecutors accused each Hallfords of pandemic help fraud, siphoning the cash and spending it and prospects’ funds on a GMC Yukon and Infiniti value over $120,000 mixed, in addition to $31,000 in cryptocurrency, luxurious objects from shops similar to Gucci and Tiffany & Co., and laser physique sculpting.
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Jon Hallford and his spouse, Carie, have been accused of storing the our bodies between 2019 and 2023 and sending households faux ashes. (AP)
One other sufferer, Derrick Johnson, advised the choose that he traveled 3,000 miles to testify about how his mom was “thrown right into a festering sea of demise,” The AP reported.
“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 and so they dined,” he added. “My mother’s cremation cash doubtless helped pay for a cocktail, a day on the spa, a first-class flight.”
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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 through which she can be charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse.
The Related Press contributed to this report.