RIPLEY, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi funeral home has beenfined $10,000 for what authorities say was an illegal practice of buryingpeople in cheaper caskets than planned before their deaths.
News outlets report Mississippi Secretary of State DelbertHosemann issued a statement Tuesday detailing the practice by Ripley FuneralServices LLC.
The statement says the Ripley funeral home substitutedplastic burial containers for concrete ones eight times between 2017 and 2018.It says the parlor also substituted different color caskets than what preneedpolicy owners chose about 20 times between 2016 and 2018.
Funeral home attorney Tony Farese says many of the swapswere made to accommodate relatives of the deceased, and all state lawviolations were made out of compassion for grieving families. He says adisgruntled employee reported the swaps.
