Owner of closed funeral home ordered to pay restitution

FLINT, Mich. – The owner of a now-closed funeral home in Michigan has been ordered to pay at least $75,000 in restitution for failing to put prepaid funeral contract funds into escrow.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel says 58-year-old O’Neil Swanson II of West Bloomfield pleaded no contest to two felonies. A no-contest plea isn’t an admission of guilt but is treated as such at sentencing.

The Swanson Funeral Home in Flint was closed in 2017 after maggots were found in a garage where unrefrigerated bodies were being stored. Officials later determined prepaid funeral contracts were sold without a proper license.

Swanson will receive an 11-month delayed sentence. Nessel says one felony will be dismissed and Swanson will be sentenced on the remaining felony if full restitution is paid by the end of the sentence.