Mortuary owners
in Hilo arrested

Second-degree theft charges
accuse them of stealing caskets

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

HILO >> State investigators arrested the owners of Memorial Mortuary in Hilo this morning for second-degree theft, the attorney general's office announced.

The attorney general has been looking into allegations that the mortuary cheated customers by stealing caskets from graves. The state also is investigating the alleged unauthorized sale of pre-need funeral plans and embalming without a license.

Robert Diego, Momi Diego and Bobby Jean Diego were being held in police holding cells after their arrest for second-degree theft.

An attorney general's office spokesman could not be reached for further comment. The Diegos' attorney, Brenda Carreira, also was unavailable.

In an affidavit filed with a search warrant last month, customers said they purchased caskets but when the bodies of loved ones were dug up for reburial, the caskets were gone.

Mortuary customer Jacob Pa said he saw the body of his mother, Lily, lying in a casket with a concrete vault in 1982. Diego asked funeral participants to leave before the burial. When the grave was opened for reburial in 1994, the body was found inside a plastic bag but no casket or vault, the affidavit says.

Gilbert Rosa said his father, Manuel Rosa Jr., was buried by Memorial in 1983, but no casket was found when the grave was opened for reburial in 1993, the affidavit says.

Diego denied stealing caskets and said funeral participants were asked to leave during burial because of danger from earth-moving equipment used by the cemetery that handles the burials.

The affidavit says the initial allegations of wrongdoing were told to the attorney general in July, 2001 by Lucille Mossman, identified as "a former girlfriend of (Robert) Diego."

Both Diego and Mossman told the Star-Bulletin that she had a child by Diego six yeas ago.

Mossman said she gave information to authorities because she couldn't allow injustice to be done. Diego said she did it because she is angry that he refused to divorce his wife and marry her.

A written statement from the attorney general asked anyone with questions or complaints about the mortuary or funeral plans from 1991 to the present to call 586-1240.