By Patricia Morrison, News Editor
“It doesn’t even apply to us whatsoever,” those are the words of former Gill Funeral Home owner and current manager Jim Pirkle concerning the news that Robert Nelms, president and chief executive officer of Memory Gardens Management Corp. has been arrested on charges of misappropriation of more than $23 million from the perpetual care fund of the business.
Gill Funeral Home was purchased by Memory Gardens Management Corp. and is the only strictly funeral home owned by the company. Other businesses owned by Nelms are funeral homes with cemeteries and the misappropriated funds came from the perpetual care fund of those cemeteries, according to Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi.
Michelle Brown with Gill Funeral Home said, “Nothing (misappropriated funds) has come from here because we’re not a cemetery. All (prepaid funeral arrangements) are bank trusts and are backed by a certified copy of death.”
The funeral home can’t access the money paid in to prepay for funerals until the bank is presented with a death certificate, according to Brown. Nelms, nor anyone else in the business, could access the money.
“We didn’t know anything about this until this morning,” Brown said.
While Gill Funeral Home is owned by Memory Gardens Management Corp., it is run as a completely separate business, according to Brown.
Nelms, 39, of Greenwood and his wife each face felony charges of theft, fraudulent or deceitful acts and illegally taking money from a perpetual care fund. Memory Gardens Management Corp. has cemeteries or funeral homes across Indiana, including Fort Wayne, Greenwood, Muncie and Osceola.
Between December 2004 and April 2005, Nelms transferred about $23.3 million from the Indianapolis-based company’s trust fund, according to the charges filed in Marion Superior Court. That money went to pay off a $13.8 million loan Nelms took out toward buying the company, buying a home for $1.2 million and personal investments, investigators said.
Nelms was arrested Thursday.
Nelms last month disputed similar allegations that he misused more than $4.2 million in trust fund money from Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens in Grand Rapids, Mich.
The Indiana attorney general’s office on Thursday filed an order in Johnson Superior Court, seeking a freeze on all the company’s accounts. State officials also asked for appointment of a receiver who will try to recover the trust fund money.
The Indiana businesses from which investigators say Nelms took money are: Forest Lawn Memory Gardens and Chapel of Greenwood; Covington Memorial Gardens and Funeral Home of Fort Wayne; Chapel Hill Associates and Funeral Home of Osceola; Lincoln Memory Gardens of Zionsville, Gardens of Memory of Muncie and Gill Funeral Home.
Pirkle said this morning he was very distressed to find Gill Funeral Home had been included in businesses Nelms is alleged to have taken money from.
“Nothing has been touched from here,” Pirkle said.
AP contributed to this story.
