LEWISTON, Maine — EDITOR'S NOTE: The video above aired July 13, 2021.
A state licensing board has offered a deal to the owner of a funeral home who's accused of letting multiple bodies decay and whose business,
Affordable Cremation Solutions was shut down in June.
The Maine Board of Funeral Service voted unanimously Tuesday to offer Ken Kincer a deal that would avoid a public hearing.
It would allow Kincer to seek a new license in 10 years if he can show he's avoided drugs and alcohol for three years and rehabilitated himself.
The Lewiston Sun-Journal reports Kincer doesn't have to accept the deal and could fight to keep his license.
On July 13, Kincer and Affordable Cremation entered into a consent agreement with the state in which his license was indefinitely suspended.
According to a report from the Maine Board of Funeral Services, on June 8, an investigator found the Affordable Cremation office on Main Street in Lewiston locked and no one answered the phone.
After being let into the building by a part-time licensed funeral attendant Kincer had left in charge, the investigator found 12 bodies in an unrefrigerated storage room, stacked in and on boxes from which "a reddish liquid appeared to have dripped" into a drain.
Some of the bodies had been in the room for six weeks, according to the report.
Two days later, the investigator reportedly found approximately 35 "cremains" on the floor, a closet shelf, and a desk.