A Colorado funeral home owner who stashed nearly 190 dead bodies in a decrepit building and sent grieving families fake ashes received the maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison on Friday, for cheating customers and defrauding the federal government out of nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 aid.
Jon Hallford, owner of Return to Nature Funeral Home, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in federal court last year. Separately, Hallford pleaded guilty to 191 counts of corpse abuse in state court and will be sentenced in August.
At Friday’s hearing, federal prosecutors sought a 15-year sentence and Hallford’s attorney asked for 10 years. Judge Nina Wang said that although the case focused on a single fraud charge, the circumstances and scale of Hallford’s crime and the emotional damage to families warranted the longer sentence.
The appropriate sentence here is to stash him in the same building, and boarding it up.
Can’t do better than 20-years in a minimum security for a wealthy white dude though. It’s not like he did some heinous, irredeemable crime like smoking marijuana while black or something.
I don’t think he’s like a decent person or anything, but 20 years of captivity is a hell of a long time…
For desecrating 200 corpses?
This is just for fraud. The corpse abuse sentencing is in August.