Since Vicksburg businessman Harry Sharp was named trustee of the receivership operating Green Acres Memorial Park, operations have been taking place in The Duff Green Mansion, the antebellum tour home owned by Sharp and his wife, Alicia.

“That’s where we do the bookkeeping and that sort of thing,” Sharp said Wednesday. “That is much, much better now.”

Records management is but one aspect of the business Sharp said has been tightened up or will be improved in the coming months.

Records show the case of the private cemetery moving past civil actions and into a criminal investigation.

Accounts are now computerized, perhaps a first for the cemetery, Sharp said, with plans to digitize the “entire cemetery operation.”

“What was turned over to us was not complete,” Sharp said of the previous system, which he described as a “very scattered” manual system done mostly out of Houston, home of Mike Graham & Associates.

A new water line will be installed this year and a new roof is planned for the maintenance shed, Sharp said. Daily hours at the cemetery will expand to 12 hours for the summer, with longer-range plans for the grounds involving construction of an above-ground crematorium as part of a “community mausoleum,” a plan he said might require permission from the state.

Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann began a civil probe of the cemetery in January as accounts at the cemetery were seized by the state after more than $373,000 was discovered missing from the cemetery’s pre-need trust account — the fund that is supposed to hold 85 percent of money clients pay in advance for such merchandise as vaults and grave markers and time-of-need services such as opening and closing graves.

As receiver, Sharp has overseen the cemetery’s financial and personnel dealings. The perpetual care fund that holds money paid for plots and continuing maintenance contains “several thousand dollars” and the cemetery has about $25,000 in operating cash, Sharp said.

Customers who paid for pre-need services still must pay a second time because of the depleted funds, but those clients are receiving discounts up to 50 percent on opening and closing costs. Cut rates on markers have been available if purchased from Green Acres, Sharp has said. That move has caused some contention among other sellers because the cemetery’s pricing and fees tend to lock them out. Green Acres, however, faces a pressing need to increase its cash flow.

“The lot owners have been very, very understanding,” Sharp said, adding his sentiments mirror those of others when it comes to possible criminal charges against the former ownership.

“I think that’s what should happen,” Sharp said.

Heirs of Mike Graham, the Texas owner of record of the cemetery, have been contacted by Hosemann’s office during the course of the civil probe. Named as defendants are his daughter, Stephanie Graham, his widow, Linda Graham, Janice Tubbs — the employee identified in the state’s testimony as having oversight of the pre-need trust account at the time of the probe — and employees Yolanda Horne, Donald R. Hughes and A.M. Brewer, who managed several Graham-owned properties in Alabama.

None of the defendants has appeared in chancery court for two hearings since the original complaint was filed by the state. However, Stephanie Graham was located in the Houston suburb of Spring on March 17 by a Harris County deputy constable upon service of summons to respond to the special assistant attorney general to address each allegation of the complaint.

In the response, Graham and the other defendants denied nearly all of the substantive allegations concerning the missing pre-need funds and violations of state law. A summons executed two weeks earlier for Graham to appear in court March 25, when Sharp became receiver, was mailed to the offices of the defendants’ law firm, Wheeless, Shappley, Bailess and Rector. No defendant has appeared in court since the civil action commenced.   

In a response filed in March by Hosemann to Graham’s objection to jurisdiction and the defendants’ motion for cause, Hosemann lashed out at their absence from court in the case.

“The utter contempt for this Court’s order shown by Defendants Stephanie Graham and Green Acres LLC is matched only by their contempt and disregard for those citizens who paid the hundreds of thousands of dollars that has been misappropriated by these Defendants,” read the filing’s opening sentence.

Under a new state law, beginning July 1, $10 will be directed from each contract and be placed in the trust to build up a fund geared to protect the consumer against future reported abuses. Another change to the state’s pre-need act will require those who sell pre-need contracts to be licensed by the state.

Seven additional funeral industry firms in Mississippi were targeted for action by Hosemann’s office in the sweep. Corporate reporting violations alleged at Green Acres were the most serious individual case, in terms of the total of missing money documented.

Hosemann and Attorney General Jim Hood have sought claims against four of the seven, involving providers in Baldwyn, Booneville, Calhoun City and Laurel, be combined. One case, involving Jackson-based Southern Mortuary, has resulted in a jail sentence for its former owner.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com