Posted on 09/28/2005 3:39:32 PM PDT by Ol' Dan Tucker
FEMA Katrina Funeral Contractor Desecrated Corpses
Division of Funeral Corp. Charged With Desecrating Corpses Hired to Collect Deceased Victims of Hurricane Katrina
By Jason Leopold
A funeral services company which recently learned that one of its subsidiaries is negotiating a lucrative contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to remove dead bodies in areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, paid $100 million to settle a class-action lawsuit several years ago alleging the company desecrated thousands of corpses, and dumped bodies into mass graves.
Moreover, the company paid $200,000 to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that sought to expose that two members of the Texas funeral commission, the agency which regulates the funeral industry, were actually employees of the company they were supposed to monitor--an obvious conflict-of-interest.
In the civil matter, which took place at two Jewish cemeteries in Florida, the plaintiff's attorney said that SCI secretly broke into and opened burial vaults and dumped remains in a wooded area where the remains may have been consumed by wild animals.
Additionally, SCI buried "remains in locations other than those purchased by plaintiffs; crushing burial vaults in order to make room for other vaults; burying remains on top of the other rather than side-by-side; secretly digging up and removing remains; secretly burying remains head-to-foot rather than side-by-side; secretly mixing body parts and remains from different individuals; secretly allowing plots owned by one part to be occupied by a different person; secretly selling plots in rows where there were more graves assigned than the rows could accommodate; secretly allowed graves to encroach on other plots; secretly sold plots so narrow that the plots could not accommodate standard burial vaults; secretly participated in the desecration of gravesites and markers and failed to exercise reasonable care in handling the plaintiff's loved ones remains."
Kenyon International. a unit of SCI, is presently in charge of the delicate task of collecting the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dead bodies in the aftermath of the hurricane.
Details about SCI's mass graves and mutilated corpses emerged publicly five years ago. According to the lawsuit, a former employee of Menorah Gardens & Funeral Chapels in West Palm Beach, which is owned by SCI, showed investigators human remains discarded in a wooded area near the cemetery.
Attorneys representing the families of the deceased who were buried at Menorah Gardens said they obtained a so-called "burial book" included gruesome details about SCI's burial practices.
"No room for spouse," "move Mrs. Kolin" and "dig this grave double deep," said one excerpt from the book. A handwritten note obtained along with the book said, "Where are Lippitis and who are Haskells and are they both deceased? Move Haskell marker."
The fact that a subsidiary of SCI is in talks with the federal government, largely due to its close ties to the White House, to remove bodies in New Orleans is ghastly.
The whistleblower suit dates back to 1999 and alleges that while he was governor of Texas, George W. Bush's office interfered with an aggressive state investigation into the embalming practices by Service Corporation International, a Houston-based funeral conglomerate headed by Robert Waltrip --a close friend of the Bush family who also contributed heavily to then Gov. Bush's gubernatorial campaigns, and donated $100,000 to former President George Bush's presidential library.
An attorney for Eliza May, a former whistleblower who served as executive director of the Texas Funeral Services Commission, the state agency that regulates the funeral business, claimed that she was fired from her state job because she raised questions about SCI's embalming practices and sought to expose the company's misdeeds. She filed a whistleblower suit in 1999 alleging "she was the victim of "political" retaliation because she was threatening the interests of a well-connected political patron of the governor," Newsweek reported in an April 21, 2001, story.
May claimed that current White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales was also complicit in the matter and even helped SCI in a cover-up. Gonzales, who was also Bush's gubernatorial counsel, reportedly received a memo on April 22, 1996, suggesting possible improprieties by two funeral commissioners with ties to SCI.
"Bush and his top aides have heatedly denied the charges and suggested the entire matter was drummed up by Democratic lawyers with political motives, Newsweek reported.
The memo, written by Marc Allen Connelly, who was general counsel to the funeral services commission at the time, and sent to Dick McNeil, the Bush-appointed chairman of the funeral commission, stated that Connelly "received information" from Texas state officials that two of the funeral commissioners charged with regulating the state funeral business actually worked for SCI-the largest funeral firm in the state. Although one of the commissioners was openly an SCI officer (the one appointed by Bush), Connelly stated that state banking records he inspected showed that another of the commissioners," Newsweek reported.
The revelation represented a "a possible statutory conflict." Texas law prohibited any two commissioners from having ties "directly or indirectly "to the same funeral company.
In the memo, Connelly told McNeil that he should "immediately inform the Governor of this apparent conflict and also recommend that the Governor take action to remove both (the two SCI-related commissioners) from the commission because both individuals knew or should have known of this conflict yet failed to notify the governor's office."
McNeil stated in a deposition that after he received the Connelly memo, he faxed it to Polly Sowell, who then served as Bush's appointments secretary. "When she was questioned, Sowell was asked what she did with the memo. "I sent it to the General Counsel's Office," she said. But Sowell said she did not remember what happened after that and, in his interview with NEWSWEEK, Gonzales said such a memo was merely one of many that might have crossed his desk and was otherwise not memorable. In any case, Bush never acted on the memo's recommendations that the SCI affiliated commissioners be removed."
* 2005 Jason Leopold
Jason Leopold is the author of the explosive memoir, News Junkie, to be released in the spring of 2006 by Process/Feral House Books. Visit Leopold's website at www.jasonleopold.com for updates.
Since you say it IS cronyism, I challenge you to find another company that does what Kenyon does, with its bona fides.
After the medias lies about rapes and murders in the Superdome, I'm suspicous of everything they write.
Let's see.
FEMA blamed for not doing enough, not getting to LA fast enough (even though they were on site before the Hurricane arrived).
FEMA head MIKE BROWN removed and replaced by President Bush.
Geee...... I can't think of any reason there would be delays.
Except that Kenyon would've been charging the government (read: you and me) for the work the local guys were willing to do for free.
In any case, Kenyon's strength is logistics: organizing the effort and coordinating identification. IOW, overall management of the recovery.
Which makes it all the stranger why FEMA didn't simply sign the contract with them, doesn't it?
The NFDA guys were willing to do for free what Kenyon wanted to pay them to do. Except that they wouldn't be able to back-charge the feds if the NFDA worked for free.
The fact that they have all of these so-called 'bona fides' makes it even stranger that FEMA brought them on-scene without a contract.
Since you say it ISN'T cronyism, I challenge you to find another company (besides Halliburton) that the feds bring in for a project of this magnitude without first signing a contract.
Me, too. But that doesn't mean I automatically give the Bush Administration a pass. They've done their share of lying, too.
The official line is that Brown resigned. Don't you remember, Bush is loyal to those around him?
Yep. And FEMA would have gotten exactly what they paid for: shoddy, disorganized, crappy service.
Since you say it ISN'T cronyism, I challenge you to find another company (besides Halliburton) that the feds bring in for a project of this magnitude without first signing a contract.
Since Kenyon had ALWAYS done this kind of work for FEMA in the past, there was no reason to assume they would not be brought in this time.
Now, for the second time, I challenge you to name another company that specializes in doing what Kenyon does. And a gaggle of small-time morticians does not count as a "company."
It's possible I didn't express myself clearly enough.
Kenyon sent a call out to NFDA looking for those NFDA members who would be willing to work the Katrina recovery for 3 weeks for pay. These would be the very same NFDA members that were volunteering to do this work for free.
But, instead of getting this help at no cost to the federal government, Kenyon would now be able to bill the federal government for the cost of bringing in these people.
Since Kenyon probably isn't in the charity business, we can only surmise that they would've padded the bill to cover 'administrative costs'.
So, instead of getting shoddy, disorganized, crappy service for free, the taxpayers are now getting shoddy, disorganized, crappy service at a substantial cost, not to mention a tidy profit for Bush's crony, Robert Waltrip.
Since Kenyon had ALWAYS done this kind of work for FEMA in the past, there was no reason to assume they would not be brought in this time.
But, according to your first post, FEMA didn't hire Kenyon, remember? According to your first post, Louisiana signed the contract with Kenyon.
As we know, this is pure fantasy. FEMA brought Kenyon into Louisiana as I originally wrote, but it did so without a contract. As you also have written, FEMA will still be paying Kenyon's bills, but instead of writing the checks directly to Kenyon, they'll be going through Louisiana, who's acting as the middleman in the deal.
Now, for the second time, I challenge you to name another company that specializes in doing what Kenyon does. And a gaggle of small-time morticians does not count as a "company.
How about DMORT? They have 1,200 trained and capable volunteers. They have mobile morgue operations, can do forensic examinations, DNA acquisition, remains identification, search and recovery, scene documentation, etc.
Let's refer once again to the article to which I linked:
SCI, of Houston, Texas, provides funeral, cremation and cemetery services in North America and Reuters reported Kenyon International Emergency Services spokesman Jay Kirsch said it was sending 50 workers to the area struck by Katrina to help recover the bodies of those killed by the hurricane.
So, Kenyon was going to send 50 people to work the area struck by Katrina. Sounds like a pretty minimal effort to me. I think DMORT could've done this much, don't you?
Reading further:
Kenyon spokesman Bill Berry said he didn't have a cost figure for work in Louisiana, but added that Kenyon has had a FEMA contract since 1997, was activated after 9-11, is working in Louisiana only so far, and isn't recovering bodies.
"We're receiving," Berry said. "We take them to a DMort ... with refrigerated facilities and then go through the morgue process."
Hmmm... Kenyon isn't recovering the bodies. And they aren't providing mortuary services, either. DMORT is.
Would these be the very same workers who you say provide shoddy, disorganized, crappy service. I believe so.
Perhaps you can explain exactly what valuable services Kenyon is providing in Louisiana that no other company in the world can provide.
Sounds like cronyism to me.
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