The arrest of a 70-year-old funeral-home director on 88 criminal charges underscores the need for oversight that’s lacking in the industry, said funeral professionals and a state lawmaker.
Neva Nolan, who owns Nolan Funeral Home in Colorado Springs, is accused of selling prepaid funeral plans to customers and not following through on terms of the plans.
The allegations against her date to 2004. She faces 56 felony counts of crimes against at-risk adults and juveniles and 24 felony counts of theft. She also faces eight counts of abuse of a corpse, a misdemeanor.
Nolan appeared in court in El Paso County on Thursday. Her bail was set at $50,000.
“It’s a black eye for the funeral-services profession,” said Steffanie Blackstock, executive director of the Colorado Funeral Directors Association.
Colorado is the only state in the country that does not require licenses for funeral directors.
Rep. Debbie Stafford, R- Aurora, sponsored a bill in 2006 that would have beefed up licensing and regulations in the funeral industry. The bill was passed by the legislature but vetoed by Gov. Bill Owens.
“It’s very upsetting to me that Colorado is the only state in the nation with no standard of training or oversight in the funeral industry,” Stafford said Thursday.
Nolan closed the doors of her funeral home in 2005, according to an affidavit in the case. But she continued to operate as a “virtual funeral home,” making house calls and outsourcing services, the affidavit said.
The abuse-of-a-corpse counts stem from bodies that were cremated and then Nolan not following through with instructions on how to inter the ashes, said Denise Minish, a spokeswoman with the El Paso County district attorney’s office.
“Ashes were to be disposed of in a certain way – arranged to be buried or scattered according to a contract – and that wasn’t done,” Minish said. “They were sitting on a shelf.”
Colorado insurance statutes permit two ways of funding “pre-need” funeral plans – through “trust-funded” or “insurance-funded” contracts. Anyone selling pre-need contracts must be licensed as “pre-need contract sellers” and they must put at least 75 percent of the funds in an earmarked trust account.
According to the affidavit, Nolan has not had a pre-need license since 1991. Nolan estimates she has $188,000 in outstanding pre-need contracts. Nolan told investigators she put the funds in pre-need accounts but later transferred them to an “off-shore” account.
Investigators believe Nolan doesn’t have sufficient funds to cover plans people already paid for.
Sixty-one customers have filed complaints, and 31 have requested refunds. So far, no refunds have been honored, according to the affidavit.
Staff writer Kieran Nicholson can be reached at 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
