A Pulaski County judge levied a $50,000 fine Tuesday against a Jacksonville funeral home charged with abusing corpses after hearing from the business's majority owners, who insisted the case had left them broke.
In a plea agreement reached last month, owners Larry and Rodney Wood avoided possible jail time when prosecutors agreed to drop criminal charges against them, instead filing 13 counts of abuse of a corpse against their business, Arkansas Funeral Care LLC.
The business then pleaded guilty to five of the counts, facing up to a $100,000 criminal fine.
Prosecutor Tonia Acker attempted to have the sentencing hearing scheduled for Tuesday pushed back after an "emergency matter" prevented the testimony of Leslie Stokes, the state investigator whose report of poor practices at the Woods' facility led to the removal of 31 bodies in January 2015.
Instead, Acker and the Woods' attorney, Dustin McDaniel, agreed to let Circuit Court Judge Chris Piazza view photographs of bodies at the funeral home without Stokes' testimony.
McDaniel called one witness at the sentencing hearing: Leroy Wood's wife, Doris Wood, who said the business had $28 left in a checking account.
Despite Acker's statements that the business was valued at $2.2 million in 2014, a $10,000 fine from the attorney general's office and mounting legal fees left the Woods with little ability to pay any criminal fines, McDaniel argued.
After hearing both sides, Judge Piazza ordered a $10,000 fine be paid for each of the five counts against the business.
After the sentencing, a lawyer for Ed Snow, a former manger at the business charged in a related case, argued for District Attorney Larry Jegley's office to be removed as prosecutors but agreed to take an extra week in an attempt to reach a plea agreement.
Another hearing in Snow's case was scheduled for May 31.
Read Wednesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.