State begins to garnish money from Buescher

Court records show the state government has begun taking money from two bank accounts connected with Barbara Buescher in an effort to satisfy a court order issued in 2012 and confirmed again less than five months ago.

The rulings came in an ongoing legal battle originally filed in 2009 over Buescher's and the Buescher Memorial Home's reported failures to operate pre-need accounts properly.

On Sept. 14, 2012, Cole County Circuit Judge Pat Joyce ordered Buescher and the funeral home to stop "engaging in the duties of a preneed seller, including receiving or obtaining any preneed funds from consumers or currently held in trust or in life policies unless Defendants have already provided (a contract) for funeral services to the preneed purchaser."

She revoked their licenses to sell pre-need funeral policies, which are intended to set aside money ahead of time for a person's future funeral expenses.

Joyce also ordered Buescher and the funeral home to return money, plus interest, to consumers who had purchased a pre-need contract or to "transfer any outstanding preneed contracts and funds maintained by the Defendants, in trust, joint accounts, or otherwise, including life insurance polices or annuities to a licensed preneed seller or provider."

But, Joyce wrote in an eight-page order last Oct. 19, both Buescher and the funeral home refused and failed to comply with the 2012 order.

Joyce's ruling last fall focused on one family's case, where a woman set up a "Funeral Pre-Arranged Contract Irrevocable Trust Account" and paid Buescher $3,500 on Aug. 4, 1992.

When the woman died in November 2014, her family used a different funeral home's services and arrangements.

Neither Buescher Memorial Home nor Barbara Buescher refunded the money to the woman or her family, Joyce ruled.

Because of that, the court ordered Buescher to pay the woman's son $11,900 by mid-November.

The judge explained the bill included the original $3,500 plus 24 years worth of interest, at 10 percent a year, for another $8,400.

In addition, Joyce wrote, state law allows a civil penalty of up to $5,000 for each violation of the law, so she ordered Buescher and the funeral home to pay a $5,000 fine to the state treasurer "for distribution to the public schools as required" by the Missouri Constitution.

When the financial award and damages were not paid by mid-November as ordered, the attorney general's office in December asked Joyce to allow the money to be garnished from bank accounts.

Those garnishments began a month ago.

The pre-need funerals case is separate from Buescher's legal battles with Jefferson City over the care and maintenance of various properties on or near East Capitol Avenue. An appeals court hearing is set for April 5 in Fulton in that case.