Cemetery Owner Charged With Theft By Deception For Allegedly 'Double Selling' Graveyard Plots; Detective: Suspect "No Stranger To This Kind Of Activity"

In Simpson County, Kentucky, the Bowling Green Daily News reports:

• A Simpson County cemetery owner – who has been convicted previously of cemetery-related charges – is accused of double-selling plots in Simpson County.
  
  Eileen Santangelo, 61, was arrested [] at Restlawn Memory Gardens, a cemetery in Franklin, on a charge of theft by deception.
  
  Simpson County Sheriff’s Office Detective Eddie Lawson, who arrested her, said Santangelo, the former owner of Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens and the current owner of Restlawn, has been accused of selling the same funeral plot to multiple people and conducting business at Restlawn without a proper business license.
  
  The investigation began in November, when people contacted Lawson saying Santangelo sold a plot to them and provided receipts that seemed to confirm the claim, Lawson said. He expects Santangelo to be charged with more offenses soon, he said.
  
  “As of right now, I have one criminal case,” Lawson said. “I have more people calling me, so I’m suspecting more.”
  
  As of [...] three days after Santangelo’s arrest, Lawson had talked to 10 people accusing Santangelo of double-selling plots or selling headstones the buyers never received, and he had six phone messages he had yet to check.
  
  “I’ve gotten a lot calls saying that people have paid for a tombstone and there is no tombstone,” he said.
  
  In July 2010, a Warren County grand jury indicted Santangelo on one count of theft by deception, according to a previous Daily News report. A month earlier, a Warren County grand jury indicted her on three counts of theft by deception, the Daily News reported. She was accused of taking money for gravestones that were not provided at the time.
  
  Warren County court records show that she pleaded guilty to one count of theft and was given a pretrial diversion.
  
  She has also been convicted in Maryland on theft cases relating to funerary services, for which she served prison time, Lawson said. Additionally, Santangelo has been banned from providing funerary services in Warren County, he said.

Source: Woman accused of selling cemetery plot to multiple buyers (Santangelo "no stranger to this kind of activity," detective says).