Ky. funeral home that performed illegal cremations ordered to pay $580,000
A Kentucky crematorium that was operating without a license has been fined $580,000 for performing nearly 300 illegal cremations, the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office announced on Friday.
A Breckinridge Circuit Court judge levied the maximum civil penalty against Cloverport Funeral Home and Kentuckiana Funeral Service, ordering them to pay $2,000 for each of the 290 cremations performed, according to a news release from the attorney general’s office and court records.
Cloverport is in Western Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from Indiana.
In January, the AG’s office filed a civil lawsuit against Cloverport Funeral Home; its owner, Anthony Oxendine; Kentuckiana Funeral Service, of New Albany, Ind.; and unknown owners of Cloverport Funeral Home, arguing that they were providing cremation services without a license, as is required. Oxendine is the registered agent for Kentuckiana Funeral Service, according to court documents filed by the attorney general.
The crematorium has been closed since a temporary restraining order was issued in January, according to the attorney general.
The defendants did not respond to the lawsuit, and the judge ruled against them Wednesday, court records show.
The attorney general’s office said it is continuing litigation against Oxendine.
“No family should be taken advantage of during their time of grief,” Attorney General Russell Coleman said in a news release Friday.
In August, the family of one man, Ira Ison, filed suit against Oxendine, along with J.B. Ratterman & Sons and Tony Ratterman, stating that they worked with Ratterman & Sons for cremation of Ison’s remains last year.
Ison died Dec. 5, and the family understood that his body would be cremated in Louisville. Instead, their lawsuit says the body was taken to the Cloverport facility.
Afterward, the family says the defendants “could not account for the location of the body and could not provide the body or cremains for the purpose of final disposition and funeral and memorial service,” the lawsuit states.
“The cremains have never been recovered or positively identified,” according to the suit. “Indeed, the cremains that eventually were presented as those of the decedent needed to be taken into possession of the Attorney General’s lab for verification that such were human remains, but the question of the identity of the remains lingers permanently.”
In its lawsuit against Cloverport Funeral Home, the AG’s office says it received “concerning information” Jan. 2 about Ison’s cremation and then learned that the crematorium was operating without a license.
Oxendine is also the former owner of Spring Valley Funeral & Cremation Services, a New Albany funeral home that has recently been under investigation by the Indiana Attorney General’s Office.
The cremated remains of 15 people who died before this year were found during an inspection of the facility June 28, WHAS reported Aug. 21, after the funeral home’s license was suspended by the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency.
Oxendine, a former Louisville mayoral candidate, told the television station he did not know anything about the investigation.
Minutes from a June 28 meeting of the Kentucky Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors indicate that the board voted not to renew Oxendine’s funeral director and embalmer’s license, Cloverport Funeral Home’s license or the license of Spring Valley Funeral Home, which also has a location in Louisville.
Coleman said the AG’s Office of Consumer Protection “is constantly on the lookout for scams and fraud that target Kentuckians,” and he urged people who think they have been scammed or victimized by illegal business practices to reach out.
