Funeral home owners accept plea deal for federal charges of wire fraud

DENVER, Colo. (KRDO) - In a federal courtroom on Thursday afternoon Return to Nature funeral home owners Jon and Carie Hallford both plead guilty to charges relating to wire fraud. The two accepted a plea agreement from the U.S Attorney's office, for their role in scheming to pocket money from customers of their funeral home business, and stacking up nearly 200 bodies at one of their buildings in the process.

Carie Hallford appeared in court at 1 p.m. on Thursday, with her husband Jon appearing afterward just before 2 p.m, as the couple have been litigated as separate cases since their arrest in April 2024. She and her spouse both plead guilty to Judge Nina Wang, on one count of Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud, as per the plea agreement drafted by the U.S. Attorneys and the defenses.

In the agreement, both the prosecution and defense teams agreed upon a sentencing range of 78 to 97 months in federal prison, which equates to roughly 6.5 years, to just over 8 years behind bars. The guideline is calculated using a number of factors about Jon and Carie as defendants, such as their criminal history, and so on.

The agreement also stipulates that neither of the couple's defense attorneys will request a sentence that’s lower than those 78 months, while Judge Nina Wang conversely, can not go over the maximum sentence of 15 years, for the penalty of Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud.

At this time a sentencing date has not been set yet. Judge Wang stated that both parties have until Oct. 28 to arrange a date that would work for both Jon and Carie to have their sentencing take place, like they did on Thursday in succession to one another.

The Judge also asked to allot more time than usual for the sentencing hearings, as final arguments from both parties, as well as verbal statements from victims are expected, and will be allowed.

The agreement also states that the couple will make a conjoined effort to pay $1,012,000 in restitution.

Jon Hallford was transferred to the federal courthouse in Denver after being held in the Teller County Jail since September 5, 2024. Prior to his transfer for unknown reasons to Teller County, Jon had been kept in federal custody at FCI Englewood since April 15, after a judge deemed Jon was a flight risk for the federal case.

That same day, the Judge permitted Carie to continue being monitored by GPS while reporting to her attorney on a weekly basis. Carie appeared in federal court under her own power on Thursday with her attorney.

Upon leaving the courtroom after the roughly 40-minute hearing, Carie allegedly gave a small smile to a family member after they said a thank you out loud for her pleading guilty.

The federal charges that landed the couple in court, were originally filed as 13 counts of Wire Fraud, and two counts of Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud, in mid-April. However, prosecutors elected to have the husband and wife plead guilty to only one charge of Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud for the sake of the plea deal.

U.S Attorney's explained in a lengthy federal court hearing on April 15, that from 2020 into 2021 during the pandemic, the Hallfords knowingly lied with paperwork they submitted for loans through the Small Business Administration (SBA), which led to them receiving three different loans payments totaling over $800,000.

Prosecutors also allege that upwards of $130,000 dollars that the Hallfords earned from taking cremation and burial payments from families, were spent on: vacations, cryptocurrency, cosmetic procedures, dining, jewelry, and more.

You can read more about the Hallford's alleged spending habits, and other details of the April 15 hearing, here.

Those wire fraud-related charges stem from a larger investigation that was launched into the couple in October of 2023, where Jon and Carie still stand accused of improperly storing nearly 200 bodies inside one of their funeral home buildings in Penrose, Colorado. During the first few days of October, neighbors in the area reported a foul odor coming from the property. After Jon blanked state regulators, it prompted a warrant to go inside the building.

From there local, county, state and national resources were deployed to handle the small town of Penrose, that had become the site of a large-scale tragedy. Bodies were removed over the course of about two weeks, and sent to the nearby El Paso County Coroner's office to be identified.

A vast majority of the 190 bodies were identified in the month of October, with more positive ID's trickling in over the course of the next several months. However, as of September 6, 2024, when victims families met with U.S Attorney's to give input on the pending federal plea deal, they were told that five bodies had still remained unidentified.

The two were later arrested in Oklahoma in early November, for over 260-plus felony charges for abuse of a corpse, theft, forgery, and money laundering.

Investigators in state court, have previously described a grisly scene inside the infamous building in Penrose, which the Fremont County Coroner had initially called a 'biohazard' upon arrival.

Investigators allege that the bodies were left to decompose, stacked on top of one another in the small building while the couple allegedly pocketed tens of thousands of dollars for cremations that they never performed for families. Court documents previously explained that the Hallfords gave families ground-up concrete, instead of ashes for the cremations they didn't do, a claim that families realized and tested for themselves.

The two used a bondsman to bail out of El Paso County jail for their state charges but were required to live under GPS monitoring, while they lived in a hotel and worked through the delivery service Doordash, before their arrest by U.S Marshalls on the federal charges a few months later.

The couple had previously been offered a plea deal on the state level, on July 1, for prison time over the state case as well.

As per two families that were in attendance on Thursday, who have heard more details about the federal plea agreement through victims meetings, explain that with the acceptance of the federal guilty plea, the couple will also have to plead guilty to the state's plea offer as well, with the prison sentences serving concurrently to one another.