A married couple in Colorado accused of mishandling up to 190 dead bodies at their funeral home have been charged with COVID relief fraud totaling $882,300, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Colorado announced on Monday.
Jon Hallford, 44, and Carie Hallford, 47, of Penrose, Colorado, have been charged with defrauding their clients and with defrauding the Payment Protection Program, a Trump-era $350 billion business loan program established during the coronavirus pandemic to aid entrepreneurs. The program was instituted as part of the $2.3 trillion CARES Act in 2020.
The two face 13 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, while they also face charges of defrauding their funeral home clients for not providing cremation and burial services for which the clients were charged.
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The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado said that in October 2023, residents close to the couple’s funeral home reported an odd smell coming from the business. The FBI obtained a search warrant and soon found 190 bodies decomposing. Authorities said some of the bodies could have been lying there since 2019.
The charges are being investigated by the FBI and the Small Business Administration Office of the Inspector General. The prosecutors will be Assistant United States Attorneys Tim Neff and Craig Fansler.
