The Secretary of State’s Office has 10 more days to come up with bank and other records to support a request that Green Acres Memorial Park continue to operate under court oversight.

The reason, state attorney Lisa Colonias told Chancellor Vicki Roach Barnes on Monday, is that the investigation now spans the owners’ holdings in five states, which complicates efforts to obtain financial information.

Barnes, who normally presides in a courtroom with only litigants and their attorneys, had about 40 people at the hearing scheduled to determine whether her Jan. 22 restraining order would be continued in the form of an injunction.

The legal process essentially makes the judge the overseer of cemetery operations and accounts on belief the owners, Mike Graham and Associates of Houston, have not maintained reserves required by law. Barnes, who froze company accounts in her first order, set the next hearing for Feb. 12.

Colonias, representing Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, said the same company that owns Green Acres has been the subject of several similar legal actions in Alabama, Texas, Kansas and Missouri, with $2.9 million in prepaid funds missing from its Alabama holdings alone. Hosemann’s office said a months-long inquiry showed more than $373,000 is missing from the trust account here and the account balance is $221.90.

The 15-acre cemetery on U.S. 80 is the area’s only commercial, for-profit cemetery. Other burials are in the municipal cemetery, Cedar Hill, or church or family cemeteries. The commercial cemetery differs from the others in several ways, including rules governing tombstones. A portion of the money families pay for plots and opening and closing graves goes into a reserve to pay for continuing maintenance, such as mowing, landscaping, drainage and road work. Families may also prepurchase vaults and markers and pay opening and closing costs. It’s those funds that are gone, Hosemann said, meaning there’s no assurance the goods or services will be provided. In the complaint as filed, Hosemann asks the court to order the company to pay back the missing trust funds, but no one has appeared in court to answer or explain. Named on the complaint as a defendant is Stephanie Graham, a daughter of Mike Graham, who died in 2007.

Hosemann alleges a violation of the state’s Pre-Need Act, passed in 2001 to regulate pre-paid funds and contracts. Under amendments to the act in 2006, a cemetery must deposit 85 percent of money prepaid for burial and related services. The maximum civil penalty under the act is $1,000 per violation.

Customers receive a standard deed to plots, which has the same effect as any real estate deed. However, for deeds to be valid against most challenges, they must be filed in county land records. Last week, 14 cemetery deeds were filed in the Chancery Clerk’s Office by those who the records show had signed contracts with Green Acres, in some cases dating to the early 1980s.

Seven additional funeral industry firms in Mississippi were targeted for action by Hosemann’s office. Corporate reporting violations alleged at Green Acres were the most serious in terms of the total of missing money.

The cemetery was established in 1955 and operated by Joe Varner for 30 years until his death in 1989. After a succession of operators, it was purchased by Graham in 2001. A number of liens and personal lawsuits had been filed against the company in the years leading up to the current probe, according to Warren County Chancery Court records.

Mississippi has a state Board of Funeral Service that licenses and regulates funeral homes, funeral directors, embalmers, and, after a 2007 scandal involving a Jackson firm, crematories. Other than state Health Department criteria, no state agency has jurisdiction over cemeteries. The Secretary of State’s Office has enforcement powers regarding corporate charters.

At least one burial has taken place at Green Acres since Jan. 22. Two employees are reportedly still being paid. The cemetery has about 3,200 graves.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com