Colorado funeral home owner pleads guilty in body sales case

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado funeral property operator accused of illegally providing body pieces and supplying consumers bogus ashes has pleaded responsible to mail fraud in federal courtroom.

The Daily Sentinel reports that Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 yrs in jail soon after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. Other prices versus Hess will be dropped under a plea agreement, the Sentinel claimed.

Hess, 45, and her mom, Shirley Koch, operated the Sunset Mesa Funeral Property in Montrose. They ended up arrested in 2020 and charged with 6 counts of mail fraud and a few counts of unlawful transportation of hazardous supplies.

A grand jury indictment reported that from 2010 by 2018, Hess and Koch available to cremate bodies and present the stays to people at a charge of $1,000 or additional, but many of the cremations never ever happened.

Hess experienced designed a nonprofit group in 2009 known as Sunset Mesa Funeral Basis as a entire body-broker company performing organization as Donor Companies, authorities explained.

On dozens of situations, Hess and Koch transferred bodies or human body components to 3rd functions for research with out families’ expertise, according to the U.S. Justice Section. The transfers had been performed as a result of Sunset Mesa Funeral Basis and Donor Providers, authorities reported.

Hess and Koch also delivered bodies and overall body elements that analyzed beneficial for, or belonged to persons who died from, infectious ailments such as Hepatitis B and C, and HIV, inspite of certifying to prospective buyers that the remains ended up disease-absolutely free, authorities said.

Both of those Hess and Koch originally had pleaded not responsible to the expenses.

Hess is tentatively established to be sentenced in January. A change of plea listening to for Koch is scheduled for July 12.

Prosecutors proposed a sentence for Hess of 12 to 15 decades.