Federal court has found that a Colorado funeral home owner was guilty of illegally selling body parts to clients and providing fake ashes to them.
The Daily Sentinel reports Megan Hess will be sentenced to a maximum of 20 years imprisonment after she entered a plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. According to the Sentinel, Hess' other charges will be dropped as part of a plea deal.
Hess, 45, was a mother to Shirley Koch. They owned the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. In 2020, they were both arrested and charged with six counts each of mail fraud and three of illegal transport of hazardous materials.
According to a grand jury indictment, Hess and Koch offered to cremate bodies and give the remains to their families for $1,000 or more from 2010 to 2018, but most of these cremations never took place.
According to authorities, Hess had founded a non-profit organization called Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation in 2009 as a body-broker and business as Donor Services.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, Hess and Koch made numerous transfers of body parts or bodies to third parties to conduct research, without the knowledge of their families. Authorities said that the transfers were made through Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation or Donor Services.
Hess and Koch also shipped body parts and bodies that were positive for or belonged to persons who died of infectious diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis B and C. Authorities said that even though they certify to buyers that the remains are disease-free, Hess and Koch did not.
Hess and Koch had originally pleaded not guilty.
Hess will be sentenced in January, according to preliminary plans. Koch will be heard at a change of plea hearing on July 12.
Prosecutors recommended that Hess be sentenced to between 12 and 15 years.
CBS Colorado reported that state regulators received complaints about wrongdoing at Montrose's facility, but state law prohibits them from entering funeral homes unless criminal charges are filed.
Dylan Roberts and Matt Soper both said that they would change this.
Soper said to the station, "One thing I heard repeatedly from the families was that it was like a new death."
He stated that Colorado funeral directors are the least well-regulated in the nation.
Soper stated, "It just sort of hits your gut." "Body brokering, selling body parts and chopping up body pieces, giving concrete to people, these are not things you hear of in the United States of America," Soper said.
