Colorado funeral home owners who allegedly mishandled 190 bodies ordered to pay nearly $1 billion to families of the deceased

By Rebekah Riess, CNN

(CNN) — The owners of a funeral home accused of failing to cremate or bury human remains despite being paid to do so have been ordered to pay a judgment that could top $1 billion.

Judge Lynette Wenner of the Fremont County District Court entered a judgment of more than $956 million against Carie Hallford and Jon Hallford, the owners of the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, Colorado, who are accused of mishandling 190 sets of human remains, court documents show.

The defendants did not respond to the lawsuit so a default judgment was entered, court documents show.

The judgment for the families of the deceased could exceed $1 billion with interest, attorney Andrew Swan, who represented the class, wrote in a letter sent to the families of the victims.

Each family member in the class action was awarded more than $7 million. Swan told CNN he believes the amount to be the largest monetary judgment in Colorado history.

But it’s unlikely they will collect that amount from the Hallfords, the attorney said.

In addition to the class action lawsuit, the Hallfords are facing federal and state charges.

A state investigation into the business began in 2023 after a foul odor was reported coming from the funeral home that offered “green burials,” and human remains were found improperly stored at the site, as CNN previously reported.

The Hallfords were arrested last year by the Colorado Bureau of Investigations on 190 counts of abuse of a corpse and counts of theft, money laundering and forgery, according to state charging documents.

Earlier this year, a federal grand jury indicted the pair on charges including 13 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado.

The federal indictment alleged the pair defrauded their funeral home customers by not providing a cremation or burial for the deceased as promised. They are also accused of misusing $882,300 in pandemic relief loans. They have pleaded not guilty.

An attorney for Carie Hallford declined to comment on the class action judgement. CNN has reached out to an attorney for Jon Hallford for comment.

In April, Jon’s attorney told CNN that the policy of the office of the federal defender is to not comment on ongoing cases and Carie’s attorney declined to comment.

As previously reported by CNN, prosecutors said the Hallfords “concealed the gruesome collection of bodies … by preventing outsiders from entering their building, covering the windows and doors of the building to limit others from viewing inside, and providing false statements to others regarding the foul odor emanating from the building and the true nature of the activity occurring inside.”

In her judgment in the class action case, Judge Wenner said, “The Court specifically finds that Defendants acted in a willful and wanton manner,” which she said entitles the families suing the funeral home owners “to exemplary damages to the statutory cap.”

Swan, whose firm Leventhal Lewis Kuhn Taylor Swan PC took the case on a pro bono basis, told CNN there’s “some sense of righteous justice in this judgement.”

“My colleagues and I hope that the Court’s record-setting judgment validates the experience you suffered, recognizes the pain incurred, and discourages bad actors from engaging in misconduct like this ever again,” Swan wrote in his letter to families announcing the judgment.

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