Russellville Christian Church buys funeral home at auction
Doug Waters ~ Bowling Green's Daily News ~ 3/5/2006
RUSSELLVILLE - A church will soon occupy a beleaguered funeral home property in Logan County.
The property belonging to Tim Hanna, who's been charged with funeral-home fraud, was sold at a commissioner's auction late last month by Russellville Christian Church.
Pat Suiter, who is on the church's building committee, said the church, comprised of 60 to 65 people, previously met at the Women's Club building in Russellville.
"We didn't think about the controversy," Suiter said. "That was the best location and building we could find in Russellville."
Suiter said expansion needs trumped all other concerns, even though members were well aware of the funeral home's problems.
Hanna, 46, was arrested in October by Kentucky State Police and accused of stealing from clients who made prepaid funeral arrangements. Hanna faced more than 100 charges at his initial arraignment Feb. 16, including 16 counts of second-degree forgery for bogus death certificates to the state's Funeral Trust Fund.
Allegedly, some or all of the money for certain reservations never made went into the state's Funeral Trust Fund.
"It's a big, spacious building. It's a matter of personal feelings as to how you feel about a funeral home as a business or church home," said Charles Orange, the Logan-Todd commonwealth's attorney.
Three properties - Hanna and his wife's house, the funeral home and the LandMark Travel building they owned across the street from it - were sold along with furniture and other equipment, said Jay Joines, the Logan County Circuit Court master commissioner.
Stressing the sales were not connected to Hanna's criminal charges, Joines said they were based on a civil failure-to-pay-debt case. Rumors circulating that proceeds of the sales could go to funeral-fraud victims are not true, he said.
"It's a lawsuit by the bank to collect money owed to the bank," Joines said. "The judgment and the case and the lawsuit spells out correctly who gets the money. It doesn't have anything to do with operation of the funeral home or anything about that."
The funeral home sold for $246,100, the house sold for $82,390 and the LandMark Travel building sold for $7,490. Jesse L. Riley and Son Real Estate and Auction handled the sales, he said. About 100 to 150 people attended the auction, Joines said.
As for the criminal case against Hanna, Orange said Hanna is currently out on bond and his next hearing should be in early April. The sides are still poring through evidence in preparation for trial. Orange said trials normally take anywhere from three months to a year to resolve.
