DENVER (CN) — The federal judge who initially sentenced body-brokering funeral home owner Megan Hess to 20 years in prison for a single charge of mail fraud related to the yearslong scheme must now recalculate her sentence.
In dual motions filed Monday, Hess asked the court to adopt a lower sentencing range, while U.S. attorneys argued in favor of the maximum 15-year-penalty.
Over the course of eight years, while running the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, Colorado, Hess and her mother, Shirley Koch, sold human remains brought in for funeral services to medical research companies that used them for plasticization and study.
In all, the women made $1.2 million off 811 bodies, of which federal investigators found only 42 families gave informed consent.
Together facing more than two dozen federal charges, Hess and Koch each pleaded guilty to a single charge of mail fraud in 2022. After listening to hours of emotional testimony in January 2023, Senior U.S. Judge Christine Arguello sentenced Hess to 20 years in prison in Koch to 15.
Hess appealed and a 10th Circuit panel vacated the sentence in July, finding Arguello performed faulty analysis and wrongly applied a vulnerable victim enhancement. The panel denied Hess’ request for a new judge, handing the case back to the George W. Bush appointee.
In her motion for a downward variance, Hess told the court about her first two years at the Federal Correctional Institution in Minnesota, where she teaches cross-stich and embroidery five days a week. She said she has completed several classes, read 40 self-help books, taken 160 Bible study courses, volunteered in the law library, and earned a suicide-watch companion certificate.
In addition, Hess said she pioneered the prison’s “see something good, say something good” program to report positive Bureau of Prison employee behavior.
In her 12-page motion, Hess argues that unlike her portrayal in news coverage, she “was never the wealthy kingpin she was always made out to be. Ms. Hess mortgaged a lower-middle class home in a lower-middle class part of town, drove a $7,000 car, and made only a meager 20-30K in business income from her Donor Services business.”
Hess also says she suffered from traumatic brain injury, triggered after the birth of her daughter, coinciding with the start of her criminal activity.
“Although body donations are important and one of the core curriculum of any medical school or CME (continuing medical education) organization, Ms. Hess suffered under the delusion her fraud was a necessary means to a scientific end, delusional beliefs exacerbated by the combination of her TBI and postpartum struggles,” Hess said in the motion.
Hess is represented by Denver attorney Ashley Petry, who did not respond to an inquiry for comment.
In a six-page motion requesting an upward variance, U.S. Attorney Tim Neff reminded the court of Hess’ “extreme indifference and cruel depravity found in the nature of the defendant’s offense conduct.”
“As set forth in multiple victim impact statements (and recently submitted responses to victim questionnaires), the callous manner in which Hess disregarded victims’ wishes and sold body parts of deceased loved ones cannot adequately be measured within the loss table of the guidelines,” Neff said.
Neff calculated a sentencing range of 12 to 15 years in prison, and urged the court to once again impose the maximum penalty available.
In remanding the case for further proceedings, the 10th Circuit did not impose any deadlines on the lower court. Hess requested a February hearing for oral argument.