Roughly a decade since cemetery giant Service Corporation International paid out roughly $120 million after being accused of misplacing bodies, smashing vaults and overselling plots at its graveyards near Palm Beach Gardens and Fort Lauderdale, it is facing similar allegations.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, lawyers who in the past have taken on the nation’s largest funeral service firm claim that operations at the Star of David cemetery in North Lauderdale are as gruesome as those that got the company in trouble with state regulators and spawned civil suits.

Calling the practices “morally despicable, fraudulent, unlawful and unfair,” attorneys Edward Ricci and Michael Avenatti said they are seeking more than $200 million on behalf of the thousands who buried loved ones or prepaid for plots at the sprawling Jewish cemetery near Florida’s Turnpike and Commercial Boulevard.

Information they have gathered shows that vaults were crushed and corpses moved without permission from family members. In some cases, vaults, grave markers and possibly human remains were thrown in a lake on the property, said Ricci, who was among the lawyers who successfully sued the company 10 years ago for the repulsive handling of graves at its two Menorah Gardens cemeteries.

(Source: WPTV)