The woman, Megan Hess, 45, the main figure in the scheme, was helped by her mother, Shirley Koch, who is in her late 60s, prosecutors said. As part of a plea agreement, eight other criminal charges against Ms. Hess were dropped. He could face up to 20 years in prison. “I went beyond the scope of consent and I’m trying to make an effort to correct it,” Ms. Hess said in United States District Court in Grand Junction, Colo., on Tuesday, according to the Daily Sentinel. “I take the responsibility”. Ms. Koch has pleaded not guilty but has scheduled a change of plea hearing scheduled for July 12. Here’s how prosecutors said the scheme worked: From about 2010 to 2018, Ms. Hess was in charge of Donor Services, a nonprofit “body broker service,” and Funeral Directors of Sunset Mesa, which offered to arrange cremations , funerals and burials in the small western town of Montrose, Colorado. Ms. Hess and her mother sometimes obtained consent from families to donate small tissue samples or tumors from a deceased relative, according to an indictment in the case. In other cases, their request was denied and sometimes they never raised the issue. In each case, the documents say, in hundreds of cases funeral home operators sold heads, torsos, arms, legs or entire human bodies. Often, they delivered cremated remains to families under the impression they were the remains of their relatives when, in fact, they were not, according to the indictment. The income the mother and daughter earned from selling body parts allowed them to become the cheapest option for cremation in their area, increasing their supply of corpses, authorities said. But, authorities said, families routinely paid $1,000 or more for a cremation that often never took place. The scheme involved forging documents, such as signatures on organ donation authorization forms, and misleading buyers about the results of medical tests performed on the deceased, court documents state. Ms Hess altered lab reports to say people had tested negative for diseases such as HIV and hepatitis when they had actually tested positive, authorities said. Lawyers for Ms. Hess did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department and a lawyer for Ms. Koch declined to comment on the plea agreement.
