Funeral Director Suspended For Drugs

05/09/2008 05:45:48


DAYTON, Ohio -- The state funeral board has suspended Dayton funeral director Wayne L. Wheat from directing funerals, embalming bodies or running his funeral business until Aug. 1.

The Ohio Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors suspended Wheat's license in January for six months, beginning Feb. 1, because of Wheat's 1994 conviction in federal court on drug trafficking charges involving money laundering, board records show. The board's action followed several attempts by Wheat in recent years to delay or stop the board from acting on his case, including last September when he filed an injunction in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court.

The board also fined Wheat $5,000 in its January agreement with the 64-year-old funeral director, owner of the House of Wheat Funeral Home at 2107 N. Gettysburg Ave. Wheat, a funeral director since 1967, could not be reached for comment on Thursday, May 8. Neither could board President Pernell Jones Sr., who voted against the agreement, or board staffers. A clause in the agreement prohibits the board, its staffers and Wheat from making "any statement to any media, news concern or other third party regarding issues relating to this Agreement, to the maximum extent that refraining from comment is permitted by law."

The House of Wheat remains open for business. Wheat's sons, Wayne "Tony" Wheat and William Stacey Wheat, are licensed embalmers and funeral directors. A jury in 1994 found Wheat guilty on one count of conspiracy to distribute large quantities of cocaine and heroin by helping a local drug kingpin launder drug money. It also found him guilty of one count of money laundering. U.S. senior District Judge Walter H. Rice in 1996 found insufficient evidence to convict Wheat on the drug conspiracy charge, and he dismissed the money laundering conviction in 1998. An appeals court later reversed Rice's ruling on the drug conspiracy charge and returned the case to him for sentencing. In 2003, Rice put Wheat on three years probation, with one year of it on home confinement. Wheat, who maintained his innocence throughout the case, asked the court to vacate his sentence. The court denied his request in August last year.

courtesy of www.daytondailynews.com

© Copyright WHIO radio news

WebReady^TM Powered by WireReady® NSI