A Colorado funeral residence proprietor who stashed almost 190 lifeless our bodies in a decrepit constructing and despatched grieving households pretend 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 courtroom final yr.
Individually, Hallford pleaded responsible to 191 counts of corpse abuse in state courtroom and will likely be sentenced in August.
At Friday’s listening to, federal prosecutors sought a 15-year sentence and Hallford’s legal professional requested for 10 years.
Choose Nina Wang mentioned 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 strange fraud case,” she mentioned.
In courtroom earlier than the sentencing, Hallford instructed the choose that he opened Return to Nature to make a optimistic affect in individuals’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 finished.”
Hallford and his spouse, Carie Hallford, had 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 couple of 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 pretend.
In two instances, the flawed physique was buried, in response to courtroom paperwork.
Many households mentioned it undid their grieving processes.
Some family had nightmares, others have struggled with guilt, and at the 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.
Along with his head poking simply above the lectern, he instructed the choose 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 despair.
He mentioned he instructed 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 verify, which led to remedy and an emotional assist canine.
“I miss my grandma a lot,” he instructed 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 price over $120,000 mixed, together with $31,000 in cryptocurrency, luxurious objects from shops like Gucci and Tiffany & Co., and even laser physique sculpting.
Derrick Johnson instructed the choose that he traveled 3,000 miles to testify over how his mom was “thrown right into a festering sea of demise.”
“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 possible helped pay for a cocktail, a day on the spa, a firstclass flight.”
Jon 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 flawed, he admitted he was flawed” and hasn’t provided an excuse. His sentencing within the state case is scheduled in August.
Asking for a 15-year sentence for Hallford, Assistant US Lawyer 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 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 during which she’s additionally charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse.
