Saddle Brook cemetery workers stole $180,000 from grieving survivors, prosecutor says

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A pair of Saddle Brook cemetery workers took $180,000 from grieving loved ones for plots and mausoleum crypts and used the money for themselves, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said this morning in announcing their arrests.

Photo Credit: *Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY PROSECUTOR*

Jerry DeMarco

11/07/2014 2:33 p.m.

Denise J. Dagostino and Kathy Barbier, both of Garfield, were arrested by members of Molinelli’s White Collar Crimes Squad and Garfield police after representatives of the Archdiocese of Newark alerted them to the thefts at Saint Mary’s Cemetery, Molinelli said.

Barbier was being held on $50,000 bail and Dagostino on $25,000 in the Bergen County Jail.

Both are charged with theft by deception.

Dagostino also is charged with “failure to make required disposition” and falsifying records; Barbier is also charged with conspiracy.

A 10-month investigation “revealed that Dagostino and Barbier, together, took cash payments from customers who paid for cemetery plots and mausoleum crypts totaling approximately $180,000 and used them for their personal use,” Molinelli said.

A Nov. 17 arraignment was set.

MUGSHOTS: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY PROSECUTOR

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