Colorado funeral director who acknowledged abusing 191 corpses withdraws guilty plea

COLORADO SPRINGS A Colorado funeral home owner who acknowledged abusing corpses withdrew his guilty plea Friday and will go to trial after a judge rejected a plea agreement in a rare decision Family members of those whose bodies were identified piled up and decomposing in a building in Penrose Colorado want a longer state prison sentence than the years in the plea agreement Jon Hallford and his wife Carie for years ran a fraudulent scheme from their Return to Nature Funeral Home while maintaining a lavish lifestyle according to personnel Prosecutors say they took money from customers for cremations only to stash the bodies and give the families dry concrete resembling ashes Jon Hallford has already been sentenced to years in federal prison in a separate fraud episode The rejection the plea agreement in the corpse abuse development followed anguished testimony during a hearing last month A jury trial for Jon Hallford was set for Feb and is expected to last a month or longer The plea agreement announced Hallford s state sentence was to run concurrently with a -year federal sentence meaning he could have been freed a large number of years earlier than if the sentences had run consecutively State District Judge Eric Bentley explained he had never rejected a plea agreement in his nine years on the bench and called it an extreme action by the court A conviction for abuse of a corpse is the least serious type of felony under the law with a realizable sentence ranging from probation to a maximum of up to months in prison on each count Related Articles Civil rights attorney Ben Crump pledges justice for Black man shot by Aurora police Handgun airsoft gun confiscated at Colorado Springs high school Safeway s plan to close Colorado stores sparks concern over access to groceries job losses Sushi restaurant at Denver s Dairy Block announces closure Early morning copper wire theft forces RTD to shut down segment of A Line Carie Hallford was accused of the same crimes as her husband and pleaded guilty She s awaiting sentencing Colorado has struggled to effectively oversee funeral homes and for multiple years had particular of the weakest regulations in the nation It s had a slew of abuse cases including decomposing corpses discovered last month at a funeral home in Pueblo owned by the county coroner and his brother Investigators in the Pueblo affair declared this week that they had identified four of the bodies and further identifications could take a essential amount of time No charges have been filed Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter