The former owner of Sunset Gardens Cemetery in Laurel is charged with at least two misdemeanor counts of violating the state law overseeing accounting and reporting requirements, audits and records of perpetual care cemeteries in connection with three cemeteries other than the one in Laurel.

Donald Middleton — the most recent owner of record — is charged with violation of Mississippi Code (1972) Sec. 41-43-38, titled “Operation as perpetual care cemetery; accounting and reporting requirements; audits; records.”

The Laurel Leader-Call earlier reported that missing funds from the four cemeteries include money for prepaid funeral services, purchases of vaults and headstones, and the vaults themselves. The Mississippi Attorney General’s Office (AG) has located 179 burial vaults in Dothan, Ala., some of which had been purchased by Sunset Gardens customers.

An employee of the Calhoun County Justice Court confirmed that the AG’s office filed two misdemeanor charges against Middleton on June 19 in connection with the investigation into Pinecrest Memorial Park. The warrants were listed as “pending.”

A spokesman for Prentiss County Justice Court would neither confirm nor deny the AG’s office had filed charges against Middleton. She referred the Leader-Call to the AG’s office.

The required reports were not filed with the chancery clerk’s offices in the respective counties.

Only misdemeanor charges have been filed at this time. The statute of limitations only allows the misdemeanor charges to go back for two years.

The owner of the cemeteries closed all four offices and allegedly left assets unaccounted for. Assets since discovered by the AG’s investigation -- in addition to the 179 vaults -- include five or six military markers. According to a source close to the investigation, cemetery owners allegedly told relatives of service men or women they could not use the free military markers given by the U.S. Veterans Administration — that they had to buy the military markers themselves. Five to six double-sold plots at Sunset Gardens in Laurel have possibly been identified.

“Some of the (burial) contracts would be torn up after they were paid off,” the source said, leaving no records of the purchases.

The AG’s Consumer Protection Division is suing Rogers Memorial Management Co., and its officer, James Rogers of Birmingham, Ala.; and Middleton of Hendersonville, N.C., dba/Rogers Memorial Management Co., for consumer protection violations, seeking civil penalties. Rogers is not facing criminal charges from the Consumer Protection Division at this time.

A source close to the civil investigation said Middleton, Rogers and Daisy Norman of Norman Mortgaging Service of Greenville, Ala. have been served with civil process papers, and that the AG’s office is waiting on Middleton and Rogers to sign an agreed order which would allow the cases involving all four cemeteries to be transferred to Prentiss County Chancery Court in Booneville. The AG’s office will ask the court to place all four cemeteries into receivership, allowing them to be sold separately.

The source said Norman bought some accounts receivable from Middleton, but did not know the contracts would not be fulfilled, and that the AG is going through paperwork to settle with her. “She is a victim as well,” the source said.

Trust funds for perpetual care of the cemeteries set up at local banks where the cemeteries are located “were pilfered,” the source said. Neither source could give an estimate of how much money is either missing or unaccounted for.

Problems surfaced during the summer of 2007 at Sunset Gardens, where the cemetery was not being maintained, and people with relatives buried in the cemetery had no access to the office, which had been closed. A spokesman for a cemetery committee formed subsequently said people felt like the owners of Sunset Gardens had deserted them. Similar problems began surfacing about some of the other cemeteries.

The AG’s office confirmed to the Leader Call that it was initially investigating problems at Prentiss Memorial Gardens, but expanded its investigation to include Sunset Gardens and the other two cemeteries.

Efforts by the Leader-Call to contact Middleton or an attorney representing him were unsuccessful. It is believed by the AG’s office that Middleton is representing himself.