JAKARTA - A former Colorado funeral home owner, United States was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Tuesday for dissecting 560 bodies and selling body parts without the permission of the family.
Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. She operates funeral homes, Sunset Mesa, and Donor Services from the same building in Montrose, Colorado.
A 20-year prison sentence is the maximum that is allowed according to law.
His 69-year-old mother, banyak Koch, also pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Koch's central role was to dissect the corpse, court records showed.
"Hess and Koch sometimes use their funeral homes to steal bodies and body parts using fake donor forms," prosecutor Tim Neff said in a court filing.
"Hess and Koch's behavior caused tremendous emotional pain to their closest family and relatives."
Federal cases were sparked by a series of 2016-2018 Reuters investigations into body parts sales in the United States, an almost unregulated industry.
Mantan karyawan mengatakan kepada Reuters, Hess dan Koch melakukan potongan tubuh tanpa izin, dan beberapa minggu setelah berita tahun 2018 diterbitkan, FBI menggerebek bisnis tersebut.
In their filing, prosecutors stressed the "terrible nature" of the Hess scheme and described it as one of the most significant cases in recent US history.
"This is the most emotional case I've ever experienced," US District Judge Christine M. Arguello said at Tuesday's trial at the Grand Production, Colorado.
The judge ordered that Hess and Koch be sent to prison immediately.
Meanwhile, Hess' attorney said he had been unfairly slandered as a "winner", "monster", and "ghost", whereas he was a "destroyed human" whose behavior could be attributed to a traumatic brain injury at the age of 18.
In Tuesday's court, Hess refused to speak to the judge. Meanwhile, Koch told the judge that he was sorry and responsible for his actions.
Separately, twenty-six families of the victims described their horror when they learned what was happening to their loved ones.
"Our sweet mother, they cut it," said Erin Smith, selling her shoulders, knees and feet for profit.
"We don't even have a name for this heinous crime," he continued.
Tina Shanon, whose mother was cut into pieces beyond her will, told the court, "I put a lot of masks on to cover up the pain. I'll never be okay."
It is known that selling organs such as heart, kidney and tendon for transplants in the United States is illegal, they must be donated.
But selling body parts such as the head, arms and backbone of Hess for use in research or education is not regulated by federal law.
Hess committed a crime, prosecutors said, when he deceived the deceased's relatives by lying about cremation and by dissecting the corpse and selling it without permission.
Meanwhile, surgical training companies and other companies that bought Hess' arms, legs, head and torsso did not know that the items were obtained fraudulently, prosecutors said.
At his funeral home, Hess billed families up to $1,000 for an unprecedented cremation, prosecutors said. On the other hand, he offered free cremations to others in exchange for body donations.
Prosecutors said he lied to more than 200 families, who received cremation ash from trash bins mixed with the remains of different bodies.
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