$5 Million Awarded in Compton Cemetery Suit

A jury in Bellflower has returned $5 million in verdicts against a cemetery in Compton for burying bodies in the shoulder of a roadway after staging phony graveside services in a nearby grassy plot, an attorney for the plaintiffs said Wednesday.

More than 250 verdicts were handed down Monday and Tuesday in a class-action lawsuit filed in 1995 against Angeles Abbey Memorial Park. Awards ranged from $1,000 to $125,000, depending on the relationships between the plaintiffs and the deceased, according to Santa Ana attorney Amador Corona.

Corona said the cemetery moved a roadway, tearing up some of the pavement and burying the bodies in a dirt area that had been covered with asphalt. Confusion over the configuration of the new roadway led motorists to drive over the dirt burial area, the attorney said.

He said the only thing to indicate the presence of graves was a series of numbers painted on a curb.

Corona said several of the plaintiffs, most of whom are from low-income, minority families, said they had been misled to believe that their relatives were being buried in the grassy area where interment services had been conducted.

Since the lawsuit was filed, the dirt area has been sodded and marked to indicate the graves, the attorney said.

Up to six bodies were buried in each grave, Corona said. Relatives were aware from the outset that the deceased were being buried in multiple-interment plots, he said.

No one was available for comment Wednesday at Angeles Abbey. Scott Cox, an attorney for the cemetery, did not return telephone calls seeking comment.