Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

UES Funeral Home to the Stars Mistakenly Mixes Ashes of 2 People, Suit Says

By Shaye Weaver | April 25, 2017 4:50pm
 The Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on Madison Avenue.
The Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on Madison Avenue.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Shaye Weaver

UPPER EAST SIDE — A Madison Avenue funeral home that has catered to such deceased stars as Philip Seymour Hoffman is being sued for mixing the ashes of two unrelated people, a new lawsuit says.

After Pegi DeFeo died on Dec. 30, 2016, her sons, Michael DeFeo and Charles Peter DeFeo III, hired the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel to cremate their mother's remains, place them in a cedar container and hold a private ceremony, according to the suit filed in State Supreme Court.

But at the beginning of the year, while the cremation process was underway, the chapel at 1076 Madison Ave. alerted the family that the woman's ashes were mistakenly mixed with those of an unrelated man, the lawsuit states.

"It is impossible to distinguish or separate [Pegi DeFeo's] ashes from those of the individual with whom her ashes were combined," says the suit, which notes the family paid the chapel $12,188 for their services.

Because of the mishap, the funeral home has not released the ashes to the DeFeos and a ceremony has not been held almost four months after her death, according the the lawsuit.

The family has suffered "severe mental anguish, shock, trauma, emotional distress, and psychological injuries," according to Gil Santamarina, the attorney representing them. "It's devastating for them and continues to be."

Pegi DeFeo's husband is not named in the suit as a plaintiff because he is ill and "unable to cope with the stress associated with bringing this lawsuit," the filing shows.

The lawsuit, which was filed on April 19, seeks at least $100,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.

The funeral chapel's manager was not available to comment Tuesday.

The home has previously hosted services for Hoffman, rap manager Chris Lighty and Queens Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro.

It is at least the second Upper East Side funeral home to be sued for negligence within the last two years. 

In 2015, a Brooklyn-based family sued the Walter B. Cooke Funeral Home on East 87th Street after losing their loved one's ashes in the mail.

Both funeral homes are owned and operated by a subsidiary of the Texas-based Service Corporation International, called Dignity Memorial, which operates nearly 4,000 funeral homes and cemeteries in 12 countries.

In 2014, SCI settled a lawsuit alleging that a cemetery it operates in California desecrated several graves in order to fit in more burials, Bloomberg reported. In 2003, it reportedly paid $14 million to the state of Florida and $100 million to hundreds of families that complained the company oversold plots to make room for burial sites.

SCI declined to comment, saying in a statement that "due to pending litigation and out of respect for the family, we are not going to comment on the matter.”