James Schriver, the former operator of a South Dakota funeral home, was sentenced to five years probation on Tuesday for charges handed down after authorities found methamphetamine and nearly 3 pounds of marijuana while executing a search warrant inside Memorial Mortuary & Crematory earlier this year.
Schriver, 59, stepped down from his role with the family business following his arrest for drug charges in April when a search of the property uncovered around 2.5 pounds of marijuana and 4 grams bags of meth. Shriver was living inside an apartment within the Aberdeen, S.D. funeral home at the time and was initially charged with multiple felonies, including possession with intent to distribute, but later pleaded guilty to lesser counts.
Judge Jon Flemmer of South Dakota’s Fifth Circuit Court accepted the plea Tuesday and sentenced Schriver to a five-year suspended prison sentence, Aberdeen News reported. He’ll additionally spend five years on probation and pay nearly $3,000 in fines and court costs, but may have the charges expunged if he stays out of trouble for the next several years, the newspaper reported.
Schriver was listed in official documents as the co-owner and co-operator of Memorial Mortuary & Crematory along with his brother, George, when police executed the search warrant in April. George Schriver, 53, published an advertisement in Aberdeen’s Sunday American News in July apologizing over the scandal and announcing that his sibling had stepped down from the business.
“Please be assured that my staff and I will do whatever it takes to honor them and restore trust that may have been compromised due to some circumstances of which I was not aware,” George Schriver wrote in an ad in which he thanked the community for supporting the business started by his parents 55 years earlier. He previously pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors connected to the investigation and was also given a suspended jail sentence.
Cory Allen Heidelberger, the blogger behind Dakota Free Press — the state’s self-proclaimed “true liberal media” — took aim at the sentences in an editorial Wednesday where he questioned whether a person of different social status would have received the same punishment for being caught with what police established to be $13,300 worth of weed and $800 worth of meth.
Illegally dealing drugs “are never acceptable options,” the blogger wrote, “but such actions are even more offensive when committed by individuals who have accumulated power in the community. Wiping these crimes from this criminal’s record seems like an unwise favor to one who deserves no favor.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.