A former Kentucky funeral director has been charged with multiple felony preneed thefts, some of which occurred 25 years ago. Various news sources report that Donald Creech began pocketing consumer preneed payments as early as 1996. The consumer preneed payments were to have been forwarded to the Kentucky Funeral Directors Association’s master trust. Until he
prosecution
The Cassity Plea: A new shell game?
By Bill Stalter on
Posted in NPS/Lincoln, Preneed
This was not the ending that most expected. After decades of playing shell games with regulators and funeral homes, Doug Cassity accepted a plea bargain rather than go to trial. Brent Cassity also accepted a plea bargain, and the St. Louis Post Dispatch reports that attorneys for one of the remaining defendants were scurrying to…
Zero Tolerance: Preneed Fraud and local prosecutors
By Bill Stalter on
Posted in Preneed
Over the past few years, preneed frauds have been measured in terms of hundreds of millions (with the suggestion that the NPS loss will top a billion). And, funeral directors and consumers have been frustrated by the perception that regulators are helpless to stop preneed fraud. Apparently, one local prosecutor from Texas took notice.
When the…