A federal judge has canceled an October trial date and set a change-of-plea hearing in a fraud case involving the owners of a Colorado funeral home where authorities discovered 190 decaying bodies.
Jon and Carie Hallford were indicted in April on fraud charges, accused of misspending nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds on vacations, jewelry and other personal expenses. They own the Return to Nature Funeral Home based in Colorado Springs and in Penrose, where the bodies were found last year. They pleaded not guilty at the time.
The indictment alleges that the Hallfords gave families dry concrete instead of cremated ashes and buried the wrong body on two occasions. The couple also allegedly collected more than $130,000 from families for cremations and burial services they never provided.
The 15 charges brought by the federal grand jury are separate from the more than 200 criminal counts pending against the Hallfords in state court for corpse abuse, money laundering, theft and forgery.