Thousands of Romanians on Thursday paid their respects to King Michael I, whose body is lying in state at the Royal Palace before his funeral this weekend.
Princess Margaret of Hohenzollern, daughter of former Romanian King Michael I, cries next to his coffin, at Bucharest's Henri Coanda airport, outside Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)
Michael, who ruled Romania twice and was forced to abdicate by the communists in 1947, died Dec. 5 in Switzerland at age 96.
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Thousands of Romanians on Thursday paid their respects to King Michael I, whose body is lying in state at the Royal Palace before his funeral this weekend.
Michael, who ruled Romania twice and was forced to abdicate by the communists in 1947, died Dec. 5 in Switzerland at age 96.
Mourners arrived late Wednesday and stayed until early Thursday to pay their respects to the king. His coffin stood on a rostrum in a grand room not far from where he ordered the arrest of pro-Nazi leader Marshal Ion Antonescu on Aug. 23, 1944, which took Romania into the war on the side of the Allies.
Outside the palace, there were thousands of candles and flowers, as mourners, many in tears, said farewell to Romania's last king.
Retired medical secretary Gabriela Dumitrache called Michael "a model of morality, dignity and kindness," calling his death "a great loss, it was like losing a parent, my heart and body ached."
A man in a wheelchair arrives next to the coffin of late Romanian King Michael to pay his last respects at the former royal palace in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014 file picture, Romania's former King Michael waves to supporters during an appearance at the Elisabeta Palace in Bucharest, Romania. (AP Photo/Octav Ganea, File)
Priests pay their respects next to the coffin of the late Romanian King Michael at the former royal palace, in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Michael, who spent decades in exile working as a chicken farmer and aircraft pilot, finally got his citizenship back in 1997, eight years after the collapse of communism in Romania.
A man stands by the fence of the former royal palace after lighting candles in memory of late Romanian King Michael, seen in the poster on right, in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
A woman takes pictures of a poster depicting late Romanian King Michael, placed on the flower covered fence of the former royal palace in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
People pay their last respects next to the coffin of the late Romanian King Michael at the former royal palace, in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Mourners arrived late Wednesday and stayed until early Thursday to pay their respects to the king. His coffin stood on a rostrum in a grand room not far from where he ordered the arrest of pro-Nazi leader Marshal Ion Antonescu on Aug. 23, 1944, which took Romania into the war on the side of the Allies.
Honor guard next to the coffin of the late Romanian King Michael at the former royal palace, in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Outside the palace, there were thousands of candles and flowers, as mourners, many in tears, said farewell to Romania's last king.
People pay their last respects next to the coffin of the late Romanian King Michael at the former royal palace, in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Retired medical secretary Gabriela Dumitrache called Michael "a model of morality, dignity and kindness," calling his death "a great loss, it was like losing a parent, my heart and body ached."
A woman walks after paying her last respects next to the coffin of the late Romanian King Michael at the former royal palace, in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
A man in a wheelchair arrives next to the coffin of late Romanian King Michael to pay his last respects at the former royal palace in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014 file picture, Romania's former King Michael waves to supporters during an appearance at the Elisabeta Palace in Bucharest, Romania. (AP Photo/Octav Ganea, File)
Priests pay their respects next to the coffin of the late Romanian King Michael at the former royal palace, in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Michael, who spent decades in exile working as a chicken farmer and aircraft pilot, finally got his citizenship back in 1997, eight years after the collapse of communism in Romania.
People wait outside the former royal palace to pay respects to the late Romanian King Michael in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
A man stands by the fence of the former royal palace after lighting candles in memory of late Romanian King Michael, seen in the poster on right, in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
A woman takes pictures of a poster depicting late Romanian King Michael, placed on the flower covered fence of the former royal palace in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
He will be given a state funeral on Saturday attended by members of other European royal families. Among those who will attend are Prince Charles of Britain, King Carl Gustav XVI and Queen Silvia of Sweden, Princess Astrid of Belgium, Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg and former King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain, the royal house said.
DENVER (AP) — A couple who owned a Colorado funeral home where authorities last year discovered 190 decaying bodies were indicted on federal charges that they misspent nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds on vacations, cosmetic surgery, jewelry and other personal expenses, according to court documents unsealed Monday.
The indictment reaffirms accusations from state prosecutors that Jon and Carie Hallford gave families dry concrete instead of cremated ashes and alleges the couple buried the wrong body on two occasions.
The couple also collected more than $130,000 from families for cremations and burial services they never provided, the indictment said.
The 15 charges brought by the federal grand jury are in addition to more than 200 criminal counts already pending against the Hallfords in Colorado state court for corpse abuse, money laundering, theft and forgery.
The federal offenses carry potential penalties of 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines, the indictment said.
On Monday, the owners of the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs entered a federal courtroom bound in shackles as they made an initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott Varholak.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Neff argued the couple were 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.
The new charges and accusations triggered more anguish for families who sent their loved ones to the funeral home.
Every new revelation about the case is a jolt to Tanya Wilson, who hired Return to Nature to cremate her mother’s remains. Wilson spread the ashes with family in Hawaii. After the grim discovery, Wilson was told those ashes weren’t actually her mother, whose body has since been identified among the 190 decaying bodies.
Hundreds of family members, like Wilson, had thought they put their loved one’s to rest, or clutched their ashes close, only to have that healing torn away.
“I honestly feel like I have whiplash, and I can’t hold onto one emotion long enough to be able to process it,” Wilson said over the phone.
Before the new indictment was unsealed, public records showed the Hallfords had been plagued by debt — facing evictions and lawsuits for unpaid cremations even as they spent lavishly on themselves.
The indictment alleges the couple used $882,300 in pandemic relief funds to buy items that also included a vehicle, dinners, tuition for their child and cryptocurrency. The fraud involved three loans obtained between March 2020 and October 2021, authorities said.
Previously released court documents from the state abuse of corpse case reveal more details about what they were spending money on.
They bought a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti that together were worth over $120,000 — enough to cover cremation costs twice over for all of the bodies found in their business’ facility 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 Wilson. “Just the price of the two vehicles that he bought ... it was enough to just do right by these families.”
The Hallfords also paid for trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, as well as $31,000 in cryptocurrency, laser body sculpting and shopping at luxury retailers like Gucci and Tiffany & Co., according to court documents.
The couple have not yet entered pleas to the state’s abuse of corpse charges.
The Hallfords left in their wake a trail of unpaid bills, disgruntled landlords and unsettled business disputes.
The couple once claimed to a former landlord that they would settle their rent when they were paid for work they had done for the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the COVID-19 pandemic. The business’ website featured logos for FEMA and the Department of Defense.
FEMA has said they did not have any contracts with the funeral home. A defense department database search also showed no contracts with Return to Nature.
The company failed to pay more than $5,000 in 2022 property taxes at one of its locations, public records show. Then last year, the business was slapped with a $21,000 judgement for not paying for “a couple hundred cremations,” according to public records and attorney Lisa Epps with Wilbert Funeral Services crematory.
The Hallfords' alleged lies, money laundering, forgery and manipulation over the past four years devastated hundreds of grieving family members.
The 190 bodies were discovered last year in a bug-infested storage building in the small town of Penrose, about two hours south of Denver. Some of the remains had languished since 2019.
An investigation by The Associated Press found that the Hallfords likely sent fake ashes and fabricated cremation records to families who did business with them. They appear to have written on death certificates given to families, along with ashes, that the cremations were performed by Wilbert Funeral Services, which denied performing them for the funeral home at that time.
As the decomposing bodies were identified, families learned that the ashes they'd received could not have been the remains of their loved ones. Court documents allege at least some were dry concrete.
As far back as 2020, there were concerns raised about the business’s improper storage of bodies. But there was no follow-up by regulators, letting the collection of bodies grow to nearly 200 over the following three years.
Colorado has some of weakest funeral home regulations in the country. Funeral home operators in the state don’t have to graduate high school, let alone study mortuary science or pass an exam.
The Hallfords case and others in recent years spurred Colorado lawmakers to introduce legislation to strengthen oversight with rules that are in line with or exceed those in other states. Those bills are currently moving through the state Legislature.
Brown reported from Billings, Montana.
FILE - This combination of booking photos provided by the Muskogee County, Okla., Sheriff's Office shows Jon Hallford, left, and Carie Hallford, the owners of Return to Nature Funeral Home. The couple who owned the Colorado funeral home — where 190 decaying bodies were discovered last year — have been indicted on federal charges for fraudulently obtaining nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds from the U.S. government, according to court documents unsealed Monday, April 15, 2024. (Muskogee County Sheriff's Office via AP, File)
FILE - A hearse and debris can be seen at the rear of the Return to Nature Funeral Home, Oct. 5, 2023, in Penrose, Colo. The couple who owned the Colorado funeral home — where 190 decaying bodies were discovered last year — have been indicted on federal charges for fraudulently obtaining nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds from the U.S. government, according to court documents unsealed Monday, April 15, 2024. (Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette via AP, File)
