GREENCASTLE, Pa. — Editor's note: The above video is from May 3.
The owner of a Franklin County gravestone and memorial company who was arrested late last month on felony theft charges is now the subject of at least five civil lawsuits and facing additional legal woes.
Richard Randolph Freeman, 37, the owner of Greencastle Bronze and Granite, has been charged with 22 additional felony counts and 13 misdemeanor counts of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds received after investigators discovered 35 new alleged victims once the news of his initial arrest broke, according to a new criminal complaint affidavit filed by the Greencastle Police Department.
The new victims all claimed that they had pre-paid contracts with Freeman to provide headstones and other memorials from his company, located at 400 N Antrim Way in the Franklin County borough.
Greencastle Bronze and Granite's website is no longer functional, and the business is listed as "closed" on online search engines.
According to police, the new victims claimed that after they had paid Freeman, they kept receiving "multiple excuses and/or fabrications" regarding why the work they had paid had not been finished by the agreed-upon dates.
"In the end, the work has not been completed," investigators said in the criminal complaint.
The 35 victims paid Freeman's company a total of $90,379, with payments ranging from $250 to $7,100 per customer, according to police.
In Freeman's initial arrest in late April, police claimed his company had taken more than $31,000 from at least eight clients.
As of last week, the number of clients claiming Freeman had taken their money without delivering their memorials had swelled to 19, and the amount of money he was accused of taking was more than $68,000.
Freeman was arraigned on the new charges Tuesday morning. Bail was set at $100,000, according to court records.
A preliminary hearing on the additional charges is scheduled for May 16.