Mortician faces more theft counts - Ex-director of Russellville funeral home now charged with more than 100 counts
Burton Speakman ~ Bowling Green's Daily News ~ 2/7/2006
The Russellville funeral home director accused of stealing from clients who made pre-paid funeral arrangements has been charged with another 39 counts of theft by failure to make required disposition.
"Someone would die and the family would say they had money in the Funeral Funding Trust of Kentucky and the trust fund would say no money was there," said Trooper Todd Holder, public affairs officer of Kentucky State Police in Bowling Green.
The victim would then say they had paid "whatever amount" to funeral director Tim Hanna, he said.
"There were 52 victims involved in this case," according to a state police report on the case.
When the alleged incidents occurred, Hanna, 46, was the director of Memorial Funeral Home in Russellville.
The first complaint to state police came Sept. 27, when an individual said she was unable to contact her funeral director, according to the report.
The woman was concerned because she had recently purchased a pre-paid funeral plan from Hanna and was not able to discuss the matter, according to the report.
State police and the Kentucky Attorney General's Office then contacted the funeral funding trust to inquire about the complainant's status and discovered she did not have an account with the fund, according to the state police report.
In Kentucky individuals pre-pay a funeral home for funeral service and that money is placed into the funeral trust fund, Holder said. When that person dies, the funeral home is paid by the funeral trust.
Hanna received this money for prepaid funerals but would not forward the money to the trust fund, Holder said.
How the money was used is part of the ongoing investigation and cannot be discussed, he said.
Some of the victims have lost thousands of dollars, Logan County Commonwealth's Attorney Charles Orange has said.
Orange, who could not be reached for further comment today because of murder trial, at the time said the largest amount discovered stolen is more than $10,000 while the smallest amount is $300.
Hanna is scheduled to be arraigned on Feb. 16 in Logan Circuit Court. He is facing a total of 109 charges which include 41 counts of theft by failure to make required disposition over $300, 52 counts of violation of trust provisions/pre-need payment for funeral services and 16 counts of second-degree forgery.
Hanna was served with the additional charges Monday in Louisville and taken into custody without incident, according to the state police report.
Hanna was previously arrested on Oct. 4 but posted a bond then and was released.
State police said no further details would be released now because the investigation is ongoing.
Hanna is being held at the Logan County Detention Center on $500,000 cash bond.
Central Kentucky bureau WINCHESTER - At 74, Juanita Mance runs funeral homes in two counties, operates a beauty shop and boasts that she does it all by herself.
Since 1979, Mrs. Mance's energies have been directed into yet another area: battling the state to keep her two funeral homes open.
She has tried - and failed - to overturn a state law that requires a full-time embalmer and director at each home. Mrs. Mance serves as director and embalmer at Haggard and Son in Winchester and at its branch home at Mount Sterling, which she said is used primarily as a chapel.
Now the state is telling her to obey the law or lose her license.
Mrs. Mance, twice widowed and once divorced, said she can easily handle the workload at both funeral homes, neither of which is doing a booming business.
But Donald Butler, chairman of the state Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors, said the volume of business at a funeral home has no bearing on enforcement of the law.
Mrs. Mance doesn't deny that she's violating the board's regulations.
But she's quick to point out that the rules also give the board the power to make exceptions when warranted, and she thinks she's an exception. She plans to ask for a waiver when the embalmers' board meets next week. It will mark the first time she has made such a request.
Haggard and Son is one of two black-owned funeral homes in Winchester. Her branch home, which she opened in 1975, is the only black-owned home in Mount Sterling.
"I think that ought to carry some weight," Mrs. Mance said. "I feel I'm due a little bit of consideration."
Last year, the board suspended one funeral home operator's license for nine months for failure to staff a branch establishment with licensed personnel, said Mary Duvall, the embalming board's secretary. Two other funeral homes closed voluntarily because they didn't have the required licensed personnel, she said.
Mrs. Mance, who bubbles with pride when she talks of her two businesses, maintains she can't afford to hire an embalmer and funeral director for the Mount Sterling funeral home because it has so few funerals. In 1980, for example, it had just six funerals, she said.
"The Mount Sterling funeral home doesn't even have an embalming room," she said. "It's used primarily as a chapel. I do all my embalming work here (in Winchester)."
One option is to sell one of the funeral homes, but Mrs. Mance doesn't want to consider that.
"I like to work. I really don't want to sell," she said.
In 1979, with the state pressing her for compliance, Mrs. Mance filed suit in Clark Circuit Court to overturn the state law requiring licensed embalmers and directors at each funeral home.
She was known at the time as Juanita Chenault. She has since changed her name back to Mance after a divorce last month.
In a ruling a year ago, Clark Circuit Judge Charles T. WALTERS upheld the law, saying "...it is constitutionally permissible to expect a licensed embalmer and funeral director to be constantly present at the funeral home awaiting the unfortunate arrival of expired humans. That they might not arrive very often does not outweigh the resulting benefits."
Mrs. Mance appealed the decision to the Kentucky Court of Appeals. It affirmed the lower court's ruling in December.
Mrs. Mance, whose funeral home career began at age 51 in 1960, said she's baffled as to why the embalming board would crack down.
"I know a woman who's running three (funeral homes), and she doesn't have either license," Mrs. Mance said. "There's a whole lot doing worse than I am."
Butler denied that the board is handpicking the funeral homes for citations.
"Every complaint that comes before the board, we investigate," he said.
"I think the law is very fair," he said. "If a branch establishment doesn't make enough money to hire the personnel it needs, then they don't need it anyway."
Although she still maintains a beauty shop in Mount Sterling, Mrs. Mance said she depends primarily on her funeral homes to make a living.
"I have put a lot of money in these places," she said.
Mrs. Mance plans to ask the state embalming board Monday to delay any action until June.
That's when a woman who's serving an apprenticeship under Mrs. Mance is scheduled to take her state board examination. If she passes, Mrs. Mance hopes the woman will work for her.
"If I can just get by until June, I think I can make it," she said.
And if the board refuses to delay its action, Mrs. Mance has another plan in mind. She declined to elaborate but scoffed at the idea of closing one of her funeral homes.