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PRESTON FUNERAL SHADOWED BY FAMILY, FACILITY DRAMA: Fox.com says family is ignoring his last wish; funeral parlor had sanitary issues.
*Monday’s scheduled musical tribute to Billy Preston will reportedly include Natalie Cole and Chaka Khan in what promises to be a heartfelt sendoff to the legendary musician. His funeral scheduled for the following day, however, is already filled with drama.
As previously reported, Preston’s former manager Joyce Moore says the late performer was estranged from his family at the time of his death on June 6. According to Moore, the family took possession of the body without a court order so that an autopsy could be performed. Fox.com columnist Roger Friedman says the family has also gone against Preston’s last wish of a quick burial near his mother, opting instead to have a viewing and musical tribute on June 19, followed by the funeral on June 20.
“On top of all this, it turns out that the family has chosen a funeral parlor with massive problems,” Freidman writes of the Simpson Family Mortuary in Los Angeles. “[It] was shut down for 45 days beginning last February by the California Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA). Narrowly avoiding a total and permanent close down, Simpson had to pay a $30,000 fine to the state. Their main violations included conducting more than 700 unlicensed embalmings performed at the mortuary between May 2003 and April 2004.”
According to the DCA’s Web site, other infractions at the business included unsanitary conditions and failure to exhibit displays or make disclosures required by law to protect consumers. The mortuary also failed to properly ensure the privacy of human remains by allowing a non-employee to take photographs of a body in a preparation room, two of which were published in a newspaper in 2004.”
Friedman says the family is using Faithful Central Bible Church of Inglewood to perform the services, but that location is also in hot water “with picketers from IATSE Local 33 outside the church’s home — The Los Angeles Forum — protesting massive layoffs,” Friedman writes. “The picketers caused such a problem at the recent Madonna concert that the church has moved the Preston services to — ta da! — Simpson Family Mortuary.”
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