A family is suing a struggling funeral home in New York , claiming that staff members delivered the casket carrying their mother's remains to the wrong nation for burial .
The family discovered this information in a TikTok video from a journalist who posted about the error in Guatemala. Carmen Maldonado wanted to be buried in Ecuador with her husband, but according to her daughters, her casket was shipped to Guatemala by R.G. Ortiz Funeral Home, also known as Rivera Funeral Home.
“I was devastated. I couldn’t believe that this could be such a big confusion,” daughter Rosa Sicha told New York NBC affiliate WNBC. “I started to cry, and I was incredibly upset.” Phil Rizzuto, the family's lawyer, claimed that the children were stunned upon hearing about it and that the funeral home's denial was a second blow.
“The children of Ms. Maldonado were in shock and were devastated when they learned from TikTok that their mother’s body was in Guatemala,” he said. “The Funeral home assured them their mother was at their Funeral Home and her transport to Ecuador was delayed because they needed additional paperwork. There is no amount of money that can hold Rivera accountable for attempting to cover up their neglect.”
The claims that followed Maldonado's death in New York on May 18 are detailed in the complaint. Two days later, her children made a deal with the funeral home about their mother's remains being buried in Ecuador.
According to court records, the funeral company negligently shipped her remains to the incorrect nation on May 26 and neglected to adequately notify her family of their mistake. According to court filings, Maldonado's children were "horrified, saddened, sickened, dismayed" upon hearing about it.
The son went to retrieve her body, which had been in Guatemala since May 26. Rizzuto claimed that her remains were severely deteriorated by that point. “The hands of the body, the skin was falling off, so they had to wrap them in Saran wrap,” Rizzuto told The New York Post.
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Operating in predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhoods in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, the funeral parlor has previously been the focus of criticism. Customers burned by the funeral home received more than $600,000 for their inconvenience thanks to the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP).
The settlement was the result of a lawsuit the DCWP brought against R.G. Ortiz for egregious violations of the city's consumer protection law, which included their repeated presentation of remains in unsatisfactory conditions, their refusal to disclose information about the whereabouts of loved ones' remains, and their misrepresentation or concealment of the costs of the services they offered.
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