BOSTON, Sept. 23, 2015—A former funeral director who continued to operate without a license was sentenced to prison today for stealing nearly $150,000 from clients and storing the remains of 12 bodies in a Weymouth storage facility, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said today.

During an appearance today in Suffolk Superior Court, JOSEPH V. O’DONNELL (D.O.B. 9/10/58) today pleaded guilty to charges of:

• Unlicensed practice of funeral direction,
• Larceny over $250,
• Larceny by scheme,
• Fiduciary embezzlement by scheme – a charge covering the theft of nearly $150,000 from 31 victims,
• Four counts of forgery,
• Four counts of uttering,
• Four counts of common law uttering,
• Four counts of filing a false death certificate,
• Six counts of larceny of over $250 from a disabled person,
• 11 counts of larceny of over $250 from a person over 60, and
• 12 counts of improper disposal of a human body

Assistant District Attorney Greer Spatz recommended that O’Donnell serve a sentence of five to seven years in prison followed by probation. Judge Kimberly Budd sentenced him to three to five years in prison followed by a five-year probationary period, during which time he may not work in the funeral business or make any attempt to regain his funeral direction license.  He will also be required to undergo drug and alcohol testing and any treatment deemed necessary and pay restitution to his victims.

Had the case proceeded to trial, Spatz would have presented evidence and testimony to prove that O’Donnell bilked clients out of thousands of dollars while operating the Neponset Avenue funeral home founded by his grandfather.  O’Donnell was first licensed as a funeral director in 1980 but in 2008 failed to renew his license as required by law.  Between February of 2009 and November 2011, he oversaw the funeral, burial, or cremation of at least 201 individuals.

During that time he also entered into pre-need contracts with clients – many of whom were elderly and disabled – who planned and provided payment for their final expenses.  Rather than placing those prepayments into a trust to be used upon the individual’s death, O’Donnell deposited the funds into his funeral home’s general account.  When the funeral home was foreclosed on in 2013, O’Donnell had 31 pre-need contracts with clients who were still living but whose funds – totaling nearly $150,000 – were gone, prosecutors said.

O’Donnell additionally forged the signatures of medical examiners and other professionals on various documents, including death certificates and certificates of cremation, and entered false information on some death certificates.

During the course of their investigation into O’Donnell’s illegal practices, investigators obtained a warrant to search a Weymouth storage unit, where they discovered the decomposing remains of 12 people that had been transported to the facility from the Dorchester funeral home.  Through the course of an exhaustive investigation, Suffolk prosecutors and Boston Police were able to identify all 12 individuals and locate family for 11 of them.  Of those 11 families, eight had received cremated remains that O’Donnell represented were those of their loved ones, but which investigators determined were someone else’s.

Several of O’Donnell’s victims and their survivors delivered impact statements to the court before O’Donnell’s sentence was handed down.

“My family entrusted you to cremate my mother, which would allow us to spread her ashes at her beloved place, which we did.  Knowing that she was free from suffering and in a special place, we felt at peace.  That peace was short lived due to your complete and selfish acts.  If we hadn’t lived through this nightmare I wouldn’t believe it – one can’t even make this unforgivable act up.  The ashes we spread were not those of my mother as her body was rotting away in a storage facility in Weymouth,” the daughter of one victim told the court.  “My family released ashes.  We prayed and cried and wished her peace, but it was not my mother we said goodbye to.  Do you even know who it was?  Or how it haunts me that someone will never get the ashes of their loved one?”

O’Donnell was represented by attorney Andrew Stockwell-Alpert.  A restitution hearing will be scheduled at a later date.

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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.