HOUSTON – Two people have been arrested, accused of using a fraudulent Houston funeral business to forge signatures and steal thousands of dollars by illegally obtaining the life insurance policies from the families of deceased loved ones.
Javian Major is charged with forgery while Sandy Broussard is charged with theft. Both are felonies.
The Harris County Precinct 1 Constable’s Office said they, along with the Texas Rangers, investigated the case after the Texas Funeral Service Commission received numerous complaints that the two were operating without a funeral business license.
“Allegedly, the duo conspired to forge beneficiaries’ signatures, illicitly obtaining life insurance funds and stealing thousands. Some cases report the disappearance of loved ones’ remains,” the constable’s office wrote in a Facebook post.
Multiple people claim they have been victimized by the two. Authorities said the two were working together to scam the victims out of thousands.
“It turns my stomach because you’re dealing with people at the most vulnerable time of their lives after they’ve lost somebody that they loved and cared for,” said Harris County Precinct 1 Constable Alan Rosen. “And for me, that’s what makes this case so important. The victims, the families behind me are people that were taken advantage of. They were, manipulated. And they were completely snowballed. And fraud was committed against them.”
According to Rosen, Major would tell unsuspecting people that he was a funeral director get their confidence, and get them to send him money. He would eventually convince them to give him insurance policy information before allegedly forging signatures on documents and taking the insurance money. He said many times, the families were supposed to have funeral services done for their loved ones, and many times, it did not happen.
“In many instances, people were supposed to get the ashes of their loved ones. And to this day, some don’t know if they’ve got their actual loved ones ashes,” Rosen said.
One of the victims of Major, Ernest Aakquanakhann, said Major was able to get his sister’s life insurance policy by forging his future brother-in-law’s signature on a document.
“When a family is grieving at their lowest point, this individual had the nerve to take advantage of us,” he said.
In some cases, the victims said their loved ones’ bodies were not embalmed properly.
“When I walked in and I looked at my son, his body was bloated. He was dark,” one victim said. “I had to run out the church because I couldn’t deal with the smell.”
She’s still unsure if the ashes Major gave her belong to her son, she said.
The victims are all united in grief and being caught in the scheme.
“I have never heard of anybody doing this, but this man needs to be buried under the jail,” another alleged victim, Shatammiz Hicks, said during a press conference.
In some cases, Rosen said Major would reach out to families and claim to be friends with the deceased.
“When I say this man is a good talker, he can talk you down,” an alleged victim said.
In other cases, an alleged victim said he would approach people and present as a funeral director.
“He got a suit on. He looking real nice, you know, he’s like, ‘Oh, this is my business card,’ like, he got it all planned out just like a scammer does,” an alleged victim said.
Regardless of how he pulled it off, these alleged victims have not been able to grieve properly and say that he must be stopped.
“I don’t know, I cry, I can’t believe it. And I just feel like if justice is not served, then we’ve been failed,” one said.
Records show both Major and Broussard are out of jail on bond, but the constable’s office says this is an ongoing investigation and they want to hear from others if they believe they are a victim.