Pittsburgh funeral home owner charged in pet-cremation fraud case

We read the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s charging release so you don’t have to.

On April 28, 2025, AG Dave Sunday charged a Pittsburgh-based funeral-home owner with felony counts of theft by deception, receiving stolen property, and deceptive business practices. The release alleges the owner collected at least $657,517 from more than 6,500 pet owners between 2021 and 2024 across four counties (Allegheny, Armstrong, Washington, and Westmoreland).

The core allegation: people paid for an individual cremation or burial of their own pet, and received ashes that the AG’s office says came from other animals. “This case is disturbing, and will cause devastation and heartache for many Pennsylvanians,” Sunday said in the release.

These are charges, not a conviction. The owner has not been found guilty of anything, is presumed innocent, was released on his own recognizance, and is awaiting trial. Everything above is an allegation drawn from a government charging document.

Why we’re logging it: this is the failure the whole pet-aftercare industry runs on trust to prevent. When you pay for a private (individual) cremation, you are paying for one promise — that the ashes you get back are your pet’s and only your pet’s. There is usually no way for a grieving owner to verify it after the fact.

What you can ask for, before you hand over a pet: whether the cremation is truly individual or communal; whether you can witness it; and whether the provider issues a numbered ID tag that stays with the body and comes back with the remains. A provider that does private cremations well will have a clear answer to all three. One that hesitates is telling you something.

We don’t perform cremations and we take no money from the providers we point people toward. We just read the record and report what’s in it.