Lawsuit alleges mix-up with 96-year-old woman’s body sent to wrong country for burial.
A Queens family is taking legal action against a funeral home for mistakenly sending their loved one’s body to the wrong country. The lawsuit, filed by Carlos Minchala and his siblings, alleges that Rivera Funeral Home in Corona, N.Y., erroneously sent their mother, Carmen Maldonado, to Guatemala instead of Ecuador.
Carmen Maldonado, aged 96, passed away on May 18 in Queens. Following a funeral service on May 22, her body was intended to be transported to Ecuador for a second funeral and burial. However, instead of reaching Ecuador, the lawsuit claims that Ms. Maldonado’s body was mistakenly sent to Guatemala. The family discovered this error after coming across a video on TikTok.
The video featured a news report about a family in Guatemala who received the wrong person’s remains. Leonor Valencia, in the video, expected her husband’s remains, who had passed away in New York. However, Ms. Valencia received the remains of Carmen Maldonado instead. The circumstances surrounding how Ms. Maldonado’s body ended up in Guatemala remain unclear. Attempts to reach Ms. Valencia for comment were unsuccessful, and the whereabouts of her husband’s remains are unknown.
Source: The NY Times
