190 decaying bodies were found at a Colorado funeral home. Owners charged with COVID fraud of $880K

The indictment alleges the couple used the $882,300 in pandemic relief funds to buy items for themselves, including cars, vacations, dinners, tuition for their child, cryptocurrency, cosmetic procedures and jewelry. They carried out the fraud and obtained three loans from March 2020 to October 2021, the indictment alleges.

Additionally, the couple took in another $130,000 from families paying for cremations and burial services they never provided, the indictment says.

Previously released court documents from the abuse of corpse case reveals more details about how they spent the money.

They bought a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti that together were worth over $120,000 — enough to cover cremation costs twice over for all of the bodies found in their business’ facility last October, according to previous court testimony from FBI Agent Andrew Cohen.

They also paid for trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, as well as $31,000 in cryptocurrency, laser body sculpting and shopping at luxury retailers like Gucci and Tiffany & Co., according to court documents.

But they left in their wake a trail of unpaid bills, disgruntled landlords and unsettled business disputes.

Once, the couple claimed to a former landlord that they would settle their rent when they were paid for work they had done for the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the coronavirus pandemic. The business’ website featured logos for FEMA and the Department of Defense.

FEMA has said they did not have any contracts with the funeral home. A defense department database search also showed no contracts with the funeral home.

In 2022, the company failed to pay more than $5,000 in 2022 property taxes at one of their locations, public records show. Then last year, the business was slapped with a $21,000 judgement for not paying for “a couple hundred cremations,” according to public records and Lisa Epps, attorney for the crematory Wilbert Funeral Services.

The new federal charges are the latest example of the owners’ alleged lies, money laundering, forgery and manipulation over the past four years, devastating hundreds of grieving families.

The discovery of the 190 bodies last year, some that had languished since 2019, left families to learn their loved ones weren’t in the ashes they were given by the funeral home. Instead, they were decaying in a bug-infested building about two hours south of Denver.

An investigation by the Associated Press found that the two owners likely sent fake ashes and fabricated cremation records. They appear to have written on death certificates given to families, along with ashes, that the cremations were performed by Wilbert Funeral Services, who denies performing them for the funeral home at that time.

When the decomposing bodies were identified in the funeral home’s facility, families learned that the ashes they held could not have been the remains of their loves ones.

As far back as 2020, there were concerns raised about the business’s improper storage of bodies. But there was no follow-up by regulators, letting the collection of bodies grow to nearly 200 over the following three years.

Colorado has some of the most lax regulations for funeral homes in the country. Those who operate them don’t have to graduate high school, let alone get a degree in mortuary science or pass an exam. The case has pushed lawmakers to introduce bills bringing the rules in line with most other states, even surpassing some.

Jesse Bedayn And Colleen Slevin, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

190 decaying bodies were found at a Colorado funeral home. Owners charged with COVID fraud of $880K

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