The owner of a Pittsburgh animal funeral home has been charged with bilking more than $650,000 from thousands of customers by mishandling their pets’ remains.
Patrick Vereb, 70, of Vereb Funeral Home and Eternity Pet Memorial, is accused of duping more than 6,500 customers in Allegheny, Armstrong, Washington and Westmoreland counties in Pennsylvania between 2021 and 2024, authorities said.
Mr. Vereb took money from pet owners to cremate the animal remains, dumped the corpses in a landfill and then gave the owners the ashes of unknown animals, the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General said Monday in a news release.
When questioned by investigators, Mr. Vereb said that cremation took too long and that if a pet’s cremation took more than a week, he would give customers whatever ashes he had to “to make them feel good for the day if nothing else,” according to a criminal complaint cited by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
He would use the ashes of one customer’s pet to mollify other customers, authorities said.
“So, I don’t know who or what remains I have. And it makes me really sad, and it’s very disturbing that someone could do this. It’s disgusting,” Dawn Elder, who took her cat Ava to Mr. Vereb’s business for cremation, told KDKA-TV.
Mr. Vereb faces one count each of theft by deception and receiving stolen property, and eight counts of deceptive business practices, four for delivering less service than promised and four for selling adulterated or mislabeled commodities, according to court documents.
Authorities did not make any allegations relating to the funeral home’s care for human remains.
Mr. Vereb surrendered himself Monday, was arraigned and released on his own recognizance.
“This case is disturbing, and will cause devastation and heartache for many Pennsylvanians … this defendant betrayed and agonized pet owners who entrusted him to provide dignified services for their beloved cats and dogs,” state Attorney General Dave Sunday said.
