A Colorado funeral dwelling proprietor who stashed almost 190 lifeless our bodies in a decrepit constructing and despatched grieving households faux ashes acquired the utmost potential sentence of 20 years in jail on Friday, for dishonest prospects and defrauding the federal authorities out of almost $900,000 in COVID-19 assist.
Jon Hallford, proprietor of Return to Nature Funeral Residence, pleaded responsible to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in federal court docket final yr.
Individually, Hallford pleaded responsible to 191 counts of corpse abuse in state court docket and shall be sentenced in August.
At Friday’s listening to, federal prosecutors sought a 15-year sentence and Hallford’s lawyer requested for 10 years.
Choose Nina Wang stated that though the case targeted on a single fraud cost, the circumstances and scale of Hallford’s crime and the emotional injury to households warranted the longer sentence.
“This isn’t an unusual fraud case,” she stated.
In court docket earlier than the sentencing, Hallford informed the choose that he opened Return to Nature to make a optimistic impression in folks’s lives, “then all the pieces acquired fully uncontrolled, particularly me.”
“I’m so deeply sorry for my actions,” he stated. “I nonetheless hate myself for what I’ve accomplished.”
Hallford and his spouse, Carie Hallford, had been accused of storing the our bodies between 2019 and 2023 and sending households faux 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 that they had unfold or cherished had been faux.
In two instances, the mistaken physique was buried, in line with court docket paperwork.
Many households stated it undid their grieving processes.
Some family members had nightmares, others have struggled with guilt, and at the very least one questioned about their liked 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 choose about his grandmother, who Sperry stated 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 stated he informed his mother and father on the time, “If I die too, I may meet my grandma in heaven and discuss 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 choose by way of tears.
Federal prosecutors accused each Hallfords of pandemic assist fraud, siphoning the cash 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 choose that he traveled 3,000 miles to testify over how his mom was “thrown right into a festering sea of dying.”
“I lie awake questioning, was she bare? Was she stacked on prime of others like lumber?” stated Johnson.
“Whereas the our bodies rotted in secret, (the Hallfords) lived, they laughed and so they dined,” he added. “My mother’s cremation cash seemingly helped pay for a cocktail, a day on the spa, a firstclass flight.”
Jon Hallford’s lawyer, Laura H. Suelau, requested for a decrease sentence of 10 years within the listening to Friday, saying that Hallford “is aware of he was mistaken, he admitted he was mistaken” and hasn’t supplied an excuse. His sentencing within the state case is scheduled in August.
Asking for a 15-year sentence for Hallford, Assistant US Legal professional Tim Neff described the scene contained in the constructing.
Investigators couldn’t transfer into some rooms as a result of the our bodies had been piled so excessive and in varied states of decay.
FBI brokers needed to put boards down so they may 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 by which she’s additionally charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse.
