A Colorado funeral home proprietor was handed the harshest prison sentence for hiding almost 190 corpses in a deteriorating building and providing families with fake ashes in place of their deceased relatives.

Jon Hallford, who owned Return to Nature Funeral Home, received a 20-year prison term on Friday for defrauding clients and swindling nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 relief funds from the federal government. He admitted to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in federal court last year.

Separately, Hallford pleaded guilty to 191 counts of corpse abuse in state court and will be sentenced in August.

During Friday’s hearing, federal prosecutors asked for a 15-year sentence while Hallford’s attorney requested 10 years.

Jon Hallford and his wife, Carie, were accused of storing the bodies between 2019 and 2023 and sending families fake ashes. (AP)

Another impacted individual, Derrick Johnson, recounted to the judge how he traveled 3,000 miles to share his ordeal of his mother being “tossed into a festering sea of death,” according to The AP.

“I lie awake wondering, was she naked? Was she stacked on top of others like lumber?” said Johnson.

“While the bodies rotted in secret, (the Hallfords) lived, they laughed and they dined,” he added. “My mom’s cremation money likely helped pay for a cocktail, a day at the spa, a first-class flight.”

Carie Hallford is scheduled to go to trial in the federal case in September, the same month as her next hearing in the state case in which she is also charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse.