GRAY, Ga. (AP) - Georgia’s secretary of state has handed control of a middle Georgia cemetery to a court-ordered receiver.
Former Jones County Coroner Jerry Bridges was sentenced to 20 years in prison in December after being convicted on dozens of fraud charges related to taking money for prepaid funerals and burial expenses and using it for other purposes.
In addition to prison time, Bridges was sentenced to pay more than $200,000 in restitution to victims, and he had to allow the state to seize and sell his cemetery.
WMAZ-TV reports the Jones County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday identified the receiver of Cedar Ridge Cemetery as Don Roof with Examination Resources, LLC in Atlanta.
The receiver will distribute assets to the people Bridges defrauded as defined by a court-approved plan. Money from the sale of Cedar Ridge will go back into the perpetual care and pre-need accounts.
Each of the 43 counts in Bridges’ plea represented a person or family that he took money from while operating as a funeral home operator and the cemetery.
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