The owner of a New Mexico cemetery management and maintenance firm said “unsavory types” find their way into the cemetery ownership business in states which have very little or no regulation over the industry.

“They give us a black eye,” said Bob Roberts, CEO of CemOps, in Albuquerque, N.M.

Roberts became aware of a problem with Sunset Gardens Cemetery in Laurel after an article in the Laurel Leader-Call in August 2007 detailing the abandonment of the cemetery, leaving families of those buried in the cemetery without maintenance of the cemetery, no paperwork concerning burial plot purchases and pre-payment of grave opening and closing costs.

An investigation by the Mississippi Attorney General’s (AG) Office expanded to four to five cemeteries, most in the northeast portion of the state. The AG’s office wants the cemeteries placed into receivership, which would allow the individual locations to be purchased in hopes the cemeteries will be maintained -- on both the records and the grounds themselves.

“It’s something I’ve been keeping up with,” Roberts said concerning the investigation. “How can you tell me the state doesn’t know who owns these cemeteries? They should be registered with a state banking commission for purposes of setting up and monitoring a trust account for each cemetery. Then I noticed a new article recently that the Attorney General was investigating Rogers Memorial of Alabama. Why did it take eight months to find out who owned and abandoned these cemeteries? I’ve been in e-mail contact with the Attorney General, offering help and different avenues they can take to help with their investigation, but I’ve never heard from them.”

Roberts’ expertise is in cemetery and crematory operations and the laws surrounding the operations.

“I’ve been involved with cemeteries all my life, and I never heard of them (the owners of Sunset Gardens and the other cemeteries in northeast Mississippi involved in the investigation),” he said. “Nobody else in the industry has ever heard of them, either. Mississippi, Michigan, Indiana have no laws against these things. Now they do, but only as a knee-jerk reaction after the publicity you’ve given it,” he told the Leader-Call Wednesday.

“I like to get state legislatures involved,” Roberts said. “I like preventative measures to be taken by the government, not after the fact. My problem with these cemeteries is because these guys probably went in with the intent of raiding the physical assets,” meaning double-selling plots, selling vaults and not delivering, and selling grave markers and not delivering.

“My worry is what else wasn’t being taken care of. Maybe burials have occurred in the wrong places, plots have been double sold, things of that nature.”

A spokesman for a Sunset Gardens group which has taken over temporary maintenance of the cemetery said recently that at least five plots in the Laurel cemetery were double sold.

“Under state banking regulations, individual audits are to be performed annually on a cemetery, 20-30 percent of the records are sampled to make sure there is not a lot of white-out or entries not scratched out, to make sure the records are not being falsified,” Roberts said. “They go into the cemetery, and make sure what the records say are there.”

Another problem is when the cemeteries are purchased after they enter receivership.

“What is the new owner going to buy?,” Edwards asked. “The bottom line is that the people affected most are the families. They go to the media because they don’t have anybody else to go to. The families are out there wondering what’s going on. If there’s five plots double sold, there’s more. If you see a propensity for double selling spaces, it needs looking into more. When the new owner comes in, they may perpetuate situations they didn’t know existed. The new owner will have to reach an agreement with the state, if possible, what they’re going to be liable for.”

Roberts said under normal circumstances, there would be an agreement that the new owner won’t be liable for previous mistakes up to six years.

“But in the Mississippi case, they will probably have to negotiate to protect themselves against certain liabilities. That probably won’t happen, so they will have to assume the liabilities. It makes it hard for a new owner to come in,” said Roberts.

“Is the Attorney General looking into the bank accounts of these cemeteries?,” Edwards asked. “The records will tell the story. They always do.”

He said an Oklahoma man was recently jailed after he purchased 28 cemeteries in Michigan and raided the perpetual care funds for $93 million.

“The first thing they should find out is do they audit cemetery endowment trust funds annually? Does Mississippi do that? If not, shame on them because they start immediately.”