Colorado funeral home owners accused of failing to cremate or bury nearly 200 bodies and misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars in COVID relief funds pleaded guilty Thursday to federal fraud charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Jon Hallford and Carie Hallford, who owned Return to Nature Funeral Home, each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado. As part of their plea agreements, prosecutors said the Hallfords also admitted to conspiring to defraud the U.S. Small Business Administration of more than $880,000 in pandemic relief funds.
Jon Hallford and Carie Hallford each face up to twenty years in federal prison for the fraud charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. The couple was initially indicted on 13 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which will be dismissed under their plea agreements.
The fraud charges followed hundreds of felonies that the Hallfords were already facing in Colorado state court, including abusing corpses, theft, money laundering, and forgery. They also face lawsuits from families that hired Return to Nature, which operated in Penrose, Colorado, and the Colorado Springs area.
Authorities began investigating the Hallfords in October 2023 after residents and businesses in the Penrose area reported a foul odor near the funeral home. After obtaining a search warrant, the FBI, Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and local law enforcement discovered improperly stored human remains inside the building.
Further investigation revealed that about 190 bodies, which were in various states of decomposition, had been stored in the building, according to authorities.
“Some of the remains discovered had dates of death as far back as 2019,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release Thursday. “As part of their fraud scheme, the Hallfords misled customers of the funeral home into believing that the remains of their loved ones would be buried or cremated per their wishes and the terms of the parties’ contracts.”
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The family-owned and operated funeral home advertised that they performed “green” natural burials without embalming chemicals or metal caskets. Prosecutors said the Hallfords defrauded families across the country by “not providing a cremation or burial for the deceased as promised.”
According to prosecutors, the Hallfords allegedly gave families dry concrete instead of ashes, collected more than $130,000 from families for cremations and burials they never performed, and buried the wrong body on at least two occasions.
After authorities discovered the bodies, investigators said Jon Hallford falsely attributed the odor to his taxidermy hobby. The Environmental Protection Agency later concluded that the building was too full of “biohazards” and began demolition earlier this year.
The couple was arrested in November 2023 after fleeing to Oklahoma to avoid prosecution. Affidavits at the time revealed that the Hallfords each faced 249 charges connected to the investigation.
In April, the Hallfords were accused of fraudulently obtaining pandemic funds on behalf of their business, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors said the couple received $882,300 by “misrepresenting the fact that Jon Hallford owed back child support and by claiming that their business was not engaged in criminal activity at the time they applied for COVID-19 relief funds.”
The couple was also accused of misapplying the relief funds for personal purposes instead of using them for their business operations, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
In August, a Colorado judge ordered the Hallfords to pay about $950 million to 125 people who sued the couple in a class action lawsuit, USA TODAY previously reported.
Families previously told USA TODAY that they were shocked and horrified after discovering their loved ones had been left to rot at the funeral home. Andrew Swan, an attorney representing the victims in the lawsuit, said the payout was intended to ensure that if the Hallfords have jobs in the future, families could petition for their earnings.
“The odds of the Hallfords ever complying with the judgment are slim,” Swan said. “The purpose wasn’t to get money, but to hold them accountable for what they did.”
Contributing: Krystal Nurse, Trevor Hughes, and Emily DeLetter, USA TODAY