Springfield monument company faces lawsuit

Nixon’s statewide investigation, dubbed Operation Grave Concerns, involves about 500 Missourians who paid more than $800,000 for services. Six other monument and funeral service providers are under fire in the investigation.

But Thomas R. Smith, owner of Heartland Monuments, 1005 W. College, said that the allegations that he collected money for headstones he didn’t deliver are false. The lawsuit against Heartland Monument asks the company to pay 10 percent of the restitution awarded and $1,000 per violation to Greene County.

Smith intends to fight the lawsuit.

“It’s totally inaccurate,” he said. “I’m just a small monument company. There’s no way I would ever rip anybody off. That’s not what I’m in business to do.”

The Heartland case involves fewer than 10 people, but “it was significant enough to get our attention,” said Jim Gardner, press secretary for Nixon’s office.

Nixon said Operation Grave Concerns’ investigation into the companies showed customers’ payments were not put into specific trust accounts and were diverted for other uses.

Pre-need funeral services have been a $1.6 billion industry in Missouri in the last 20 years, Nixon said.