Thirteen decomposing bodies were removed over the weekend from a Mount Vernon funeral home that the state shut down in May and the director has been charged with handling funeral services without a license.
Michael Naughton, 55, pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge Wednesday, Feb. 4, in Mount Vernon City Court. According to a criminal complaint, Naughton admitted that Camelot Funeral Home on Stevens Avenue handled more than 20 funerals since August despite the state closure and that his license to direct funerals had been revoked in 2019.
His arrest Friday came after the state Department of Health conducted an administrative inspection of Camelot. Police were notified by the department’s Bureau of Funeral Directing and the criminal complaint detailed the discovery of the bodies “in various states of decomposition” in multiple locations, nearly all covered by drop cloths or tarps, as well as 17 labeled boxes containing cremated remains in the basement.
The bodies were found in the two marked chapel rooms, the preservation room, a hallway and in the garage, where two of the three bodies there were stacked together, according to the complaint.
Naughton told the investigator that there were no death certificates for any of the bodies.
The bodies were removed by the Westchester Medical Examiner’s Office, which is working with police and the state Attorney General’s Office “to ensure that any remains at Camelot Funeral Home are returned to family or loved ones for transfer to another funeral home,” the AG’s Office said in a statement.
They urged any affected families who have not yet spoken with law enforcement to email camelot.complaint@ag.ny.gov
The removal of the bodies and the unlicensed operation was first reported on Facebook by Mount Vernon News Center.
Naughton, who lives in Baldwin on Long Island, also ran Naughton Bros. Funeral Home in Brooklyn from 2009 until 2018, when it closed according to records of the Bureau of Funeral Directing.
He was released without bail and is due back in court on Feb. 19. Reached by phone Wednesday afternoon, he said he was not able to speak then. A lawyer assigned to represent him did not immediately respond to a text message.
Bureau records show that Camelot also closed in 2021, at a time that the funeral home would have been particularly busy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Details on that closure and the most recent one in May were not immediately available.
Westchester court records show more than $50,000 in unpaid judgments against Camelot over the past three years. They range from nearly $5,000 owed to a Brooklyn funeral home and $3,355 to an oil company to multiple $1,000-plus judgments owed to the state labor department. There are also judgments of $15,000 and $21,000 for failing to carry workers compensation insurance.
There is also a $3,823 judgment in favor of a Mount Vernon woman who sued Camelot and Naughton — though he’s named Michael North in the judgment — because she was never refunded pre-paid money for her mother’s funeral in 2023.
She expressed surprise that Naughton should not have been involved in the funeral business.
“I assumed he had a license. He was working there,” she said when reached by phone Wednesday. “I’ve been trying to get that money for a long time now.”
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Mount Vernon funeral home director arrested. Inside the charges
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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