Women ‘staged sham funerals for insurance cash’

TWO women accused of staging sham funerals to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in life insurance payments have pleaded not guilty in federal court in Los Angeles.

Faye Shilling, 60, and mortuary worker Jean Crump, 67, pleaded before US Judge Paul Abrams.

The two women were charged last week with mail and wire fraud. They remained free on $10,000 (e7,500) bond.

Prosecutors say they schemed to defraud insurance companies and funeral-related businesses out of as much as $1 million by purchasing policies on fictitious people and then staging their funerals.

Crump worked at a now-defunct Long Beach mortuary. Shilling is a phlebotomist — a healthcare worker who draws blood.

Two other people, one of them a mortuary owner, have pleaded guilty to related charges, and prosecutor Anthony Montero said the investigation is continuing.

The indictment said Crump offered one doctor $50,000 to lie on medical records to support the cause of death listed on a phoney death certificate.

Caskets were allegedly weighted with various materials to make it appear they contained corpses.