Colorado
Funeral home owner who left corpse in hearse for a over a year pleads guilty
DENVER (AP) — The Colorado funeral home owner accused of leaving a woman’s corpse in the back of a hearse for over a year and improperly stashing the cremated remains of at least 30 people pleaded guilty in court Monday to counts of corpse abuse and theft.
Miles Harford’s guilty plea in Denver follows years of other gruesome funeral home cases in Colorado, including one where the owners were accused of storing nearly 200 bodies in a decrepit building and giving families fake cremated remains.
Harford, 34, faced a dozen counts of forgery, theft and abuse of a corpse, which prosecutors described as treating bodies or remains “in a way that would outrage normal family sensibilities.”
The plea agreement dismissed the rest of the charges, but the judge said the agreement requires that all victims be named within the two charges Harford pleaded guilty to, and that he would be liable for restitution including for the dismissed counts.
Harford was arrested a year ago after the body of a woman named Christina Rosales, who died of Alzheimer’s at age 63, was found in the back of a hearse, covered in blankets, along with cremated remains of other people stashed throughout Harford’s rental property, including in the crawlspace.
Harford is represented by lawyers from the state public defender’s office, which does not comment on its cases to the media.
There were no other details in the court hearing on the charges, including how much money was taken from victims or how corpses were abused.
The sentencing is scheduled for June 9.
Colorado
Former deputy sentenced to 3 years for fatally shooting man who called for help
DENVER (AP) — A former Colorado sheriff’s deputy convicted in the shooting death of a 22-year-old man in distress who called 911 for help was sentenced Monday to three years in prison, the maximum sentence allowed.
In February, jurors found Andrew Buen guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the 2022 death of Christian Glass. Prosecutors alleged that Buen needlessly escalated a standoff with Glass, who showed signs of a mental health crisis and refused orders to get out of his SUV near Silver Plume, a small, former mining town along Interstate 70 in the Rocky Mountains west of Denver.
His parents and the agencies involved reached a $19 million settlement that also made changes to how officers are trained to respond to people in mental health crises.
Judge Catherine Cheroutes said Buen’s sentence needed to address both the loss of Glass and the damage done to the community by what happened.
“I think this was about power. It wasn’t a mistake. It was about, ‘you need to listen to me because I’m in charge,’” she said.
Buen, a former deputy in Clear Creek County, was convicted after a second trial.
Nearly a year ago, another jury convicted him of a misdemeanor for recklessly putting other officers in danger by opening fire. However, jurors could not agree on a murder charge or a charge of official misconduct.
With the support of Glass’ family, prosecutors decided to try Buen again on a second-degree murder charge. Jurors also had the option of convicting him of the less serious charge of criminally negligent homicide.
The defense argued that Glass had a knife and Buen was legally justified in shooting him to protect a fellow officer.
Convictions of law enforcement officers on more serious charges are rare because experts say jurors tend to give them the benefit of the doubt for how they act in emergencies, experts say.
A police officer and two paramedics were convicted in 2023 of criminally negligent homicide in Colorado in the death of Elijah McClain, a Black man whose name became part of the rallying cries for social justice that swept the U.S. in 2020.
One of the paramedics additionally was convicted of second-degree assault, which has a longer prison sentence. A judge later freed him from prison and sentenced him to probation instead.
Washington
Despite court order, White House bars AP from event in the Oval Office
Despite a court order, a reporter and photographer from The Associated Press were barred from an Oval Office news conference on Monday with President Donald Trump and his counterpart from El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.
Last week’s federal court decision forbidding the Trump administration from punishing the AP for refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico was to take effect Monday. The administration is appealing the decision and arguing with the news outlet over whether it needs to change anything until those appeals are exhausted.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit set a Thursday hearing on Trump’s request that any changes be delayed while case is reviewed. The AP is fighting for more access as soon as possible.
Since mid-February, AP reporters and photographers have been blocked from attending events in the Oval Office, where President Donald Trump frequently addresses journalists, and on Air Force One. The AP has seen sporadic access elsewhere, and regularly covers White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s briefings. Leavitt is one of three administration officials named in the AP’s lawsuit.
The dispute stems from AP’s decision not to follow the president’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico, although AP style does cite Trump’s wish that it be called the Gulf of America. The AP argued – and U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden agreed last week – that the government cannot punish the news organization for exercising its right to free speech.
McFadden on Friday had rejected Trump’s request for more delay in implementing the ruling; now the president is asking an appeals court for the same thing.
The extent of AP’s future access remains uncertain, even with the court decision.
Until being blocked by Trump, AP has traditionally always had a reporter and photographer among the small group of journalists invited into the Oval Office. McFadden did not order that to be restored, only that no news organization should be shut out because the president objects to its news decisions — under a principle called “viewpoint discrimination.”
“No other news organization in the United States receives the level of guaranteed access previously bestowed upon the AP,” the administration argued in court papers over the weekend. “The AP may have grown accustomed to its favored status, but the Constitution does not require that such status endure in perpetuity.”
Funeral home owner who left corpse in hearse for a over a year pleads guilty
DENVER (AP) — The Colorado funeral home owner accused of leaving a woman’s corpse in the back of a hearse for over a year and improperly stashing the cremated remains of at least 30 people pleaded guilty in court Monday to counts of corpse abuse and theft.
Miles Harford’s guilty plea in Denver follows years of other gruesome funeral home cases in Colorado, including one where the owners were accused of storing nearly 200 bodies in a decrepit building and giving families fake cremated remains.
Harford, 34, faced a dozen counts of forgery, theft and abuse of a corpse, which prosecutors described as treating bodies or remains “in a way that would outrage normal family sensibilities.”
The plea agreement dismissed the rest of the charges, but the judge said the agreement requires that all victims be named within the two charges Harford pleaded guilty to, and that he would be liable for restitution including for the dismissed counts.
Harford was arrested a year ago after the body of a woman named Christina Rosales, who died of Alzheimer’s at age 63, was found in the back of a hearse, covered in blankets, along with cremated remains of other people stashed throughout Harford’s rental property, including in the crawlspace.
Harford is represented by lawyers from the state public defender’s office, which does not comment on its cases to the media.
There were no other details in the court hearing on the charges, including how much money was taken from victims or how corpses were abused.
The sentencing is scheduled for June 9.
Colorado
Former deputy sentenced to 3 years for fatally shooting man who called for help
DENVER (AP) — A former Colorado sheriff’s deputy convicted in the shooting death of a 22-year-old man in distress who called 911 for help was sentenced Monday to three years in prison, the maximum sentence allowed.
In February, jurors found Andrew Buen guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the 2022 death of Christian Glass. Prosecutors alleged that Buen needlessly escalated a standoff with Glass, who showed signs of a mental health crisis and refused orders to get out of his SUV near Silver Plume, a small, former mining town along Interstate 70 in the Rocky Mountains west of Denver.
His parents and the agencies involved reached a $19 million settlement that also made changes to how officers are trained to respond to people in mental health crises.
Judge Catherine Cheroutes said Buen’s sentence needed to address both the loss of Glass and the damage done to the community by what happened.
“I think this was about power. It wasn’t a mistake. It was about, ‘you need to listen to me because I’m in charge,’” she said.
Buen, a former deputy in Clear Creek County, was convicted after a second trial.
Nearly a year ago, another jury convicted him of a misdemeanor for recklessly putting other officers in danger by opening fire. However, jurors could not agree on a murder charge or a charge of official misconduct.
With the support of Glass’ family, prosecutors decided to try Buen again on a second-degree murder charge. Jurors also had the option of convicting him of the less serious charge of criminally negligent homicide.
The defense argued that Glass had a knife and Buen was legally justified in shooting him to protect a fellow officer.
Convictions of law enforcement officers on more serious charges are rare because experts say jurors tend to give them the benefit of the doubt for how they act in emergencies, experts say.
A police officer and two paramedics were convicted in 2023 of criminally negligent homicide in Colorado in the death of Elijah McClain, a Black man whose name became part of the rallying cries for social justice that swept the U.S. in 2020.
One of the paramedics additionally was convicted of second-degree assault, which has a longer prison sentence. A judge later freed him from prison and sentenced him to probation instead.
Washington
Despite court order, White House bars AP from event in the Oval Office
Despite a court order, a reporter and photographer from The Associated Press were barred from an Oval Office news conference on Monday with President Donald Trump and his counterpart from El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.
Last week’s federal court decision forbidding the Trump administration from punishing the AP for refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico was to take effect Monday. The administration is appealing the decision and arguing with the news outlet over whether it needs to change anything until those appeals are exhausted.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit set a Thursday hearing on Trump’s request that any changes be delayed while case is reviewed. The AP is fighting for more access as soon as possible.
Since mid-February, AP reporters and photographers have been blocked from attending events in the Oval Office, where President Donald Trump frequently addresses journalists, and on Air Force One. The AP has seen sporadic access elsewhere, and regularly covers White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s briefings. Leavitt is one of three administration officials named in the AP’s lawsuit.
The dispute stems from AP’s decision not to follow the president’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico, although AP style does cite Trump’s wish that it be called the Gulf of America. The AP argued – and U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden agreed last week – that the government cannot punish the news organization for exercising its right to free speech.
McFadden on Friday had rejected Trump’s request for more delay in implementing the ruling; now the president is asking an appeals court for the same thing.
The extent of AP’s future access remains uncertain, even with the court decision.
Until being blocked by Trump, AP has traditionally always had a reporter and photographer among the small group of journalists invited into the Oval Office. McFadden did not order that to be restored, only that no news organization should be shut out because the president objects to its news decisions — under a principle called “viewpoint discrimination.”
“No other news organization in the United States receives the level of guaranteed access previously bestowed upon the AP,” the administration argued in court papers over the weekend. “The AP may have grown accustomed to its favored status, but the Constitution does not require that such status endure in perpetuity.”
