A couple arrested last year after at least 190 bodies were found decomposing at their Colorado funeral home were arrested again on Sunday on federal charges that they fraudulently obtained more than $880,000 in pandemic relief money, which they spent on vacations and personal goods, according to the F.B.I. and court records.
The couple, Jon and Carie Hallford, who owned Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs and Penrose, Colo., face 15 federal fraud charges, according to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Colorado that was unsealed on Monday.
The new federal charges add to state charges, including corpse abuse, that the Hallfords face in Colorado after at least 190 bodies were found decaying at their Penrose funeral home last October in a scene that the authorities described as “horrific.”
Mr. Hallford and Ms. Hallford appeared before Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak in Denver on Monday afternoon. During a 13-minute hearing, Judge Varholak did not immediately decide if the Hallfords should be released until a trial, and he scheduled an arraignment hearing for them on Thursday, according to court documents.
During the hearing, Assistant United States Attorney Tim Neff argued that the Hallfords were a flight risk, and said that they fled to Oklahoma last year when the decaying bodies were initially found, The Associated Press reported.
Ms. Hallford was being held in the Jefferson County Jail. It was unclear where Mr. Hallford was being held.
A lawyer for Ms. Hallford did not immediately respond to a phone call on Monday. There was no listing in federal court documents for Mr. Hallford’s lawyer. Lawyers representing them on the state charges did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
The Hallfords could each face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 if convicted in the federal case, according to the federal indictment. Federal prosecutors did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.
From March 2020 to October 2021, the Hallfords applied for small-business loans for pandemic relief, obtaining three separate payments that totaled $882,300, according to the indictment. In paperwork they submitted to the Small Business Administration, the Hallfords said that they were not involved in criminal activity, but were running an “ongoing wire fraud scheme to defraud customers of their business,” according to the federal indictment.
Once the Hallfords received their loans, much of the money was spent to fuel a lavish lifestyle, according to the indictment. The Hallfords spent money from their S.BA. loans on a vehicle, “multiple vacations,” eating out, cryptocurrency, cosmetic medical procedures, jewelry and tuition for a child.
“The Hallfords used the bulk of the loan proceeds for their personal benefit,” the indictment said.
Court documents in the state case further detail how the Hallfords spent money from their pandemic relief loans. The couple spent thousands on trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, $3,400 on jewelry from Tiffany and more than $19,000 on items from Amazon, according to records in El Paso County District Court.
The Hallfords also netted $130,000 from families paying for cremations or burials that were never performed, according to the federal indictment.
The Hallfords gave families or friends urns filled with dry concrete mix instead of remains of the deceased, the federal indictment said. At least twice, the Hallfords knowingly provided the wrong body for cemetery burial, and the couple withheld this from the next of kin as the wrong remains were buried, the indictment said.
The Hallfords face more than 250 charges in the state case, including 190 counts of corpse abuse and various counts of money laundering, forgery and theft. They could each face one year to 18 months in jail for each count of corpse abuse, according to the district attorney’s office in Colorado’s Fourth Judicial District.
The Hallfords are scheduled to appear in a Colorado court on June 9 for an arraignment hearing, according to the district attorney’s office.
