Prosecutors say Michael Naughton kept working after his license was revoked and left families without the services they paid for.
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. — New York prosecutors have unsealed a 20-count indictment against Michael Naughton, alleging he ran funeral services without a license at Camelot Funeral Home and defrauded grieving families after inspectors found 13 bodies and 17 boxes of cremated remains inside the building.
The case has shaken this Westchester County city because it joins two kinds of harm in one file: the handling of human remains and the money families paid while mourning. Attorney General Letitia James said Naughton, 55, of Baldwin, kept acting as a funeral director after the state revoked his license in 2019. Health officials shut Camelot after a Jan. 30 inspection, and county authorities are still trying to identify and return remains to relatives while the criminal case moves ahead.
Prosecutors trace the public timeline back several years. State health records say Naughton lost his funeral director license in 2019, which made it illegal for him to perform funeral directing work in New York. Even so, the indictment says he continued operating through Camelot Funeral Home on Stevens Avenue in Mount Vernon. The turning point came on Jan. 30, when staff from the state Department of Health’s Bureau of Funeral Directing arrived for an unannounced inspection. According to the attorney general’s office, inspectors found bodies in several parts of the property, including six in chapel rooms and three in a detached garage. Two of the garage bodies were stacked on top of each other. Inspectors also found 17 boxes of cremated remains in the basement. James said Naughton had “heartlessly took advantage” of families, and Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald quickly ordered the funeral home to stop operating and turn over records.
The indictment unsealed April 1 in Westchester County Court before Judge Melissa A. Loehr lays out the criminal case in broader detail. Prosecutors say that between at least May 27, 2025, and Jan. 31, 2026, Naughton negotiated prices, signed contracts, arranged transportation for the dead, presided over funeral services and handled bodily and cremated remains even though he no longer had a valid license. He is also accused of possessing a forged burial transit permit, a document required to move a body for burial or other disposition. The charge list includes three counts of third-degree grand larceny, five counts of fourth-degree grand larceny, one count of attempted third-degree grand larceny, one count of criminal possession of a forged instrument, one count of first-degree scheme to defraud and nine counts of unlicensed practice of funeral directing. Prosecutors say the alleged thefts took thousands of dollars from multiple families. Public filings do not identify every affected family by name, and court papers released so far do not answer every basic question, including exactly how many relatives are still waiting for confirmed identifications.
The case had already unsettled families in February, before the felony indictment was announced, when local television reports described what investigators found during the first stage of the case. One of the clearest public accounts came from Aloma Washington, whose 74-year-old mother, Estella Washington, died Nov. 25. The family held memorial services at Camelot and expected her cremated remains within days. Instead, Aloma Washington later learned that her mother’s body was allegedly still inside the funeral home when inspectors arrived. She recalled Naughton telling her, “Mom will be safe here with me.” Early complaint records described in local reports also said investigators did not find death certificates for the bodies during the initial inspection. Those reports said Camelot had been shut down in 2021, reopened and then had its operating authority suspended again in May 2025. News reports based on the first complaint said the facility handled more than 20 funerals after August. Together, those details widened the case from a single inspection into a larger question about how the business kept taking in grieving families for months.
That broader question now sits beside the criminal case. The indictment focuses on Naughton, but officials have not publicly explained in full how Camelot remained active after the 2019 license revocation and the later suspension tied to the funeral home’s operations. They have also not said whether other charges could follow. For now, the legal path is clearer than the practical one for families. If Naughton is convicted on the most serious count, he faces up to seven years in prison, according to the attorney general’s office. He is presumed innocent unless prosecutors prove the case in court. Earlier in the case, local court reporting said he pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor count tied to unlicensed practice. No public trial date has been announced on the felony indictment. Since Jan. 30, the attorney general’s office has said it has been working with the Westchester County Medical Examiner’s Office to identify the remains recovered from Camelot and return them to relatives. That administrative work may move more slowly than the court case because it depends on records, family contact and confirmation that each body or box of remains is matched to the right person.
The details that have stayed with residents are not abstract ones. They are the plain facts of where the remains were found: chapel rooms, a garage and a basement in a place families expected to be orderly and calm. Atif Coleman, a Mount Vernon resident who spoke to local television after the complaint became public, said Camelot had once been “a trusted” institution in the community. Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard called the allegations a betrayal of families at their most vulnerable moment. Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins said county medical examiner staff had been working to identify and return remains with dignity, and District Attorney Susan Cacace said people in the county have a right to expect proper care for their loved ones. McDonald, the state health commissioner, said the case shows why only licensed funeral directors should be entrusted with that work. Outside court, the damage has been measured less in legal terms than in interrupted mourning. Families who thought funerals were over have had to reopen the hardest days of their lives and wait again for answers, paperwork and the return of remains.
As of Saturday, Camelot remained shut by emergency order, Naughton faced felony and misdemeanor allegations, and officials were still working to identify and return the remains recovered on Jan. 30. The next public milestone is expected to come through further court proceedings or an update from investigators on how many families have been notified.
Author note: Last updated April 5, 2026.