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State shuts Leesville mortuary |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Thursday, 11 November 2004 |
State shuts Leesville mortuary; owner accused of stealing premiums
The Associated Press
LEESVILLE, La. -- For the second time in two years, a state board has closed a funeral home whose owner has been accused of stealing money by pocketing burial insurance premiums.
Enuch Davis, owner of Davis Mortuary, also could face criminal charges if he doesn't give the board a plausible explanation on how $17,000 from a dead man's $50,000 life insurance policy disappeared, said Michael Rasch, attorney for the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors.
The board suspended Davis' license on Monday for keeping and not forwarding pre-burial insurance premiums to Selected Funeral and Life Insurance Co., based in Hot Springs, Ark.
Board members also decided to delay levying fines and contacting the Attorney General's Office and the Vernon Parish District Attorney's Office over the missing $17,000.
Rasch said the board has given Davis one more chance to plead his case in person when it meets in January.
Davis was subpoenaed to testify at Monday's meeting, but he did not show. In a telephone interview Tuesday, Davis said his attorney, Charles Jones, "was taking care of that." Jones did not return repeated calls Wednesday.
A paralegal from Jones' office did contact the board late Friday and requested a delay in the proceedings, Rasch said. Dawn Scardino, executive director of the board, denied that request, he said.
The offense that got Davis' license suspended Monday stemmed from John Harris' burial policy. Harris paid Davis $50 a month from March 2001 until May. When Harris' daughter, Sheila Guy of Monroe, inquired about the policy, the insurance company said Harris had made just one payment: the first one.
"After that, (Davis) kept all the other payments," Rasch said.
But this isn't the first time Davis' business has been shut down by the board. Chris Clark, a licensed funeral director and embalmer, worked for Davis from 2000 until the board closed the mortuary for the first time in March 2002, also for keeping pre-burial premiums.
"What he (Davis) did was wrong," she said. Clark now works for another Leesville funeral home.
Rasch said Davis was allowed to reopen in June because the board received many letters from his supporters and Davis "assured the board it would not happen again," Rasch said.
However, the board did not know about other instances where Davis' customers felt cheated.
William Cook died alone in Leesville in December 2001. He held a $50,000 life insurance policy with Met Life, according to the board investigator's report.
His wife, Debra Cook, was finally found in March 2002 living with her parents in Florida, records show. Debra was the beneficiary of Cook's policy, but she had a drug problem and had given power of attorney to her mother, Mellie Baron.
Baron claims that someone, not her daughter, signed for a portion of the policy and collected more than $17,000 and that all Cook received was $32,896.08.
"We're missing $17,000 and some change," Rasch, the board's attorney, said.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041111/APN/411110562 |
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