Owners of Colorado funeral home where nearly 200 decaying bodies were found now also charged with COVID fraud

The owners of a Colorado funeral home where nearly 200 decaying bodies were found have been hit with additional charges for allegedly blowing more than $880,000 in COVID relief funds on vacations, cosmetic surgery and cryptocurrency.

Jon and Carie Hallford already faced more than 200 criminal counts for money laundering, forgery, theft and corpse abuse over the shocking scenes found at their Back to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs.

They were hit with 15 federal charges in a new indictment Monday that accused them of collecting over $130,000 from grieving families for cremations and burial services they never provided — instead allegedly handing over dried concrete instead of ashes and at least twice even burying the wrong bodies.

They are also accused of using $882,300 in COVID pandemic relief funds to buy cars, dinners, cryptocurrency and even cover their child’s tuition.

The 15 new federal offenses carry maximum sentences of 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines, according to the indictment.

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Prosecutors claim that the couple fraudulently obtained three loans between March 2020 and October 2021.

They used it to buy a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti with a combined worth of over $120,000— which would cover cremation costs twice over for all of the bodies found in their funeral home last October, according to previous court testimony from FBI Agent Andrew Cohen.

“That is just thoroughly disgusting for a lack of a better term, just reading about all the money that they had,” said Tanya Wilson, who hired Return to Nature to cremate her mother’s remains.

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“Just the price of the two vehicles that he bought … it was enough to just do right by these families.”

The Hallfords also took trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, bought $31,000 in cryptocurrency, made purchases at luxury retailers like Tiffany & Co. and Gucci and got expensive laser body sculpting treatments, according to the indictment.

They were arrested in November of last year after an investigation revealed 190 bodies “stored unrefrigerated, in room infested by bugs and … liquid decomposition,” according to court documents.

Some of the remains were even stacked on top of each other, or stored together in body bags wrapped in sheets and bound with duct tape, according to prosecutors.

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The couple appeared in shackles in a federal courtroom Monday for an initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott Varholak.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Neff called them a flight risk, after they allegedly fled to Oklahoma last October when the decaying bodies were first discovered and before their arrest on state charges on Nov. 8.

“They simply evaporated from the community,” Neff said.

The judge did not immediately decide if the couple should be released pending trial. He set an arraignment hearing for Thursday.

Carie Hallford’s attorney, Chaz Melihercik, said he would argue against detention at the next hearing. Jon Hallford’s public defender, Kilie Latendresse, told the judge that he had been following his bond conditions in the state case and that detention was unnecessary.

With Post wires.

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