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A Brooklyn funeral home was hit with yet another lawsuit for storing decomposing bodies in U-Haul trucks amid the coronavirus crisis.
The family of Nathaniel Hallman filed the suit last week against now-shuttered Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home in Bronx Supreme Court.
“Mr. Hallman’s remains were discovered among the scores of bodies that were desecrated and abandoned at Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home — all left there to rot and decay,” wrote attorney Kathryn Barnett, who represents Hallman’s widow, Mitzi Hallman, and goddaughter, Hope Dukes.
“This tragedy was not discovered until the smell from the U-Haul parked on the street at Cleckley was so foul that passersby called the authorities.”
At least five other suits have been filed against Cleckley by families outraged over the treatment of their loved ones.
Hallman passed away on April 17, and Dukes, his goddaughter, hired James H. Robinson’s Funeral Home to coordinate his cremation.
On April 23, Hallman’s remains were taken to the Cleckley funeral home at 2037A Utica Ave., in Flatlands, according to the filing. Robinson’s funeral home regularly used Cleckley’s facility.
Funeral director James Robinson allegedly assured the family that Hallman’s remains would be “protected, well cared for and would be cremated on April 29 at Greenwood Crematory in Elizabeth, N.J.,” the suit says.
Then, on May 1, Dukes was “shocked and horrified” when she read a news story about the storage of bodies in U-Haul trucks and recognized the funeral home’s address as the location where her godfather’s remains had been delivered, according to court papers.
After Dukes desperately tried to reach Robinson, he finally answered, then pretended he’d never heard of her or her godfather, the suit alleges.
On May 4, Dukes and the family minister went to the Utica Avenue address. “There, they saw bodies in the building — on stretchers, in body bags, wrapped in blankets,” court papers state.
Staff at the home got Dukes in touch with Robinson on the phone who allegedly insisted that “he was personally picking up her godfather’s cremated remains at that very moment at Greenwood Crematory,” the papers say.
But the next day, the Office of Chief Medical Examiner told the family in a phone call that Hallman’s un-cremated remains “were found among the many dozens of bodies found stuffed into an unrefrigerated U-Haul,” according to the filing.
The suit — which also names Robinson and the James H. Robinson Funeral Home — seeks unspecified damages for breach of contract, mishandling of remains, negligence and other claims
Funeral director Andrew Cleckley previously claimed that five other funeral homes used his space and told the New York Times that they had “bodies coming out of our ears” at the height of the pandemic.
The state Department of Health suspended Cleckley’s license on May 1, two days after complaints of foul odors and seeping liquids led the NYPD to discover the putrefying bodies stacked inside the U-Hauls.
“The Hallman family did not contract my funeral home,” said Cleckley. “They contracted another funeral home that operates out of my facility.”
Robinson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
