Delco Funeral Home Principal Stole $800K In Burial Money: DA

DREXEL HILL, PA — A Delaware County funeral home operator and his girlfriend are accused of defrauding the company and dumping funeral home funds into her bank account, authorities said Monday.

William J. O’Leary and Mary Alice Kelly have been arrested and charged in connection with a plot to defraud the O’Leary Funeral Home, a family-run corporation in Springfield, Delaware County District Attorney Katayoun Copeland announced.

O’Leary, 65, of Drexel Hill is facing a number of charges including theft, receiving stolen property and deceptive business practices.

Mary Alice Kelly, 62, also of Drexel Hill is also facing charges including theft, receiving stolen property and conspiracy.

Authorities accuse O’Leary of defrauding the business of $863,512.17 by not depositing prepaid burial funds, and they allege that Kelly conspired with O’Leary to steal $105,190 from the business through wire transfers from the funeral home to Kelly's bank account.

In June 2018, O’Leary Funeral Home employees told county detectives that they learned the business's federal and state taxes, as well as various vendors of the business, had not been paid for several years, according to authorities.

After checking the business records, the employees realized that over the course of several years, O’Leary, a principal of the corporation, accepted funds for prepaid burial contracts but did not place the money into escrow accounts as required by law and gave victims fraudulent documentation indicating their funds had been deposited into escrow, authorities said.

An investigation by county detectives indicated that O’Leary ran the O’Leary Funeral Home from 2009 to spring 2018.

A review of the prepaid burial contract files for the funeral home showed that numerous files contained a fraudulent irrevocable burial trust form using Beneficial Bank letterhead, according to authorities. These forms had been repeatedly photocopied and placed in the different files, authorities said.

Detectives contacted Beneficial Bank and reviewed these forms with the employee whose name appeared as a witness on the form, the DA's office said. The bank employee stated that not only were the forms not Beneficial Bank forms but that the forged signature was not that of the employee, and the bank account numbers on the form were not valid escrow account numbers, according to the district attorney's office.

Investigators found 87 separate thefts of prepaid burial funds from the O’Leary Funeral Home business by O’Leary and said many fraudulent irrevocable trust account forms, signed by O’Leary, were located in funeral home files, according to authorities.

During interviews, witnesses told investigators that they each met with O’Leary and gave him thousands of dollars to for prepaid burial contracts for family members, the DA's office said. These thefts of funds were discovered after O’Leary was separated from the business and the funeral home was contacted after the death of a contracted loved one, authorities said. The funeral home provided the funerals for the deceased, and no families lost any money, according to the DA's office.

On Jan. 16, 2019, detectives interviewed Kelly, a former funeral home employee who worked with O’Leary from 2012 until March 2018.

She said she did not make any of the funeral arrangements at the funeral home and did not do any of the banking, and said she put any checks she received for the business in a drawer at the funeral home for O’Leary, authorities said.

Kelly admitted that she has a personal relationship with O’Leary and that they reside together in her home, authorities said.

She denied ever lending O’Leary any money.

However, detectives found several wire transfers to a Beneficial Bank account owned by Kelly, authorities said.

These wire transfers totaled $89,800 and were from the O’Leary Funeral Home general business account and were in addition to Kelly’s weekly pay that she received by check, the DA's office said. A review of Kelly’s account also showed three checks totaling $3,050 for funerals conducted by the O’Leary Funeral Home that had been deposited into her account, authorities allege.

Further investigation showed O’Leary deposited two other O’Leary Funeral Home checks totaling $12,340 into Kelly’s personal bank account, according to the DA's office. The total amount of unauthorized transfers and deposits into Kelly’s personal bank account at Beneficial Bank by O’Leary was $105,190, according to the DA's office.

The forensic accounting and analysis of the O’Leary Funeral Home Beneficial Bank accounts revealed that between 2012 and 2018, O’Leary stole $863,512.17 in prepaid burial contracts, authorities said.

O'Leary and Kelly were both released on $500,000 unsecured bail. They are scheduled for preliminary hearings Jan. 9.

Authorities said that anyone who may have been victimized in this case is asked to contact CID Detective Michele Deery at 610-891-8745.