Attorney Says Coroner’s Staff Aids Mortuary : Oxnard: Two investigators deny steering survivors to a funeral home that specializes in shipping bodies to Mexico. Such referrals are called unethical.

Survivors of two Mexican citizens who died recently in Ventura County contend that the coroner’s office steered them to an Oxnard mortuary that charged hundreds of dollars more than a competing funeral home for shipment of the bodies to Mexico, their attorney has said.

“I find it odd that referrals are evidently being made by the coroner’s office to one mortuary,” said Lee Pliscou, lawyer for the dead men’s families. “If it’s not illegal, it certainly gives the appearance that it may be improper.”

A California State Coroners Assn. spokesman said referrals to mortuaries are unethical because they would show a public agency’s preference of one private business over another and could also prompt lawsuits by businesses that get no referrals.

F. Warren Lovell, coroner in Ventura County, said it is against his department’s policy to refer families to a specific mortuary. Two coroner’s investigators--including one who apparently had written the name and phone number of Garcia Mortuary in Oxnard on his business card for Pliscou’s client--also denied ever making referrals.

But Lovell said his staff might sometimes inadvertently direct families to Garcia Mortuary, which worked with Pliscou’s clients, because owner Roberto Garcia speaks Spanish and specializes in body shipments to Mexico.

“We might give them three mortuaries in that geographical area, but tell them he’s the one who speaks Spanish,” Lovell said. “It’s not our policy, but if they’re Mexican nationals and the body is going to Mexico, it’s possible they would tell them about Garcia.”

The Mexican Consulate in Oxnard said Garcia Mortuary has shipped 40 of the 51 bodies of Mexican citizens returned from Ventura County to Mexico during the last 13 months.

Garcia said he knows investigators in the coroner’s office well.

“We communicate all the time,” he said. “They’re very cautious about referring. . . . It’s very unethical for them to say, ‘Go to this mortuary.’ The coroner might say, ‘Here’s a list of four mortuaries in Oxnard--one is Hispanic.’ ”

Managers at three of the other four mortuaries in Oxnard said they also have Spanish-speaking employees, welcome Latino customers and can ship bodies to Mexico.

Officials at James A. Reardon Mortuary in Oxnard said they have prepared bodies for shipment to Mexico and would consider coroner referrals to any mortuary as unethical.

“If it’s true, it’s totally out of line and must be stopped,” said Jim Price, vice president of Pierce Brothers Mortuaries and Cemeteries, which operates the Reardon mortuary and owns five of 17 funeral homes in the county.

Pliscou, an attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance in Oxnard, said he became concerned about referrals because two separate clients--both brothers of Mexican laborers killed during the last two months--said they had followed referrals by coroner’s investigators to Garcia and then were billed more than seemed reasonable to them.

Pliscou said he compared Garcia’s charges with those of a Los Angeles mortician who specializes in returning bodies to Mexico and found that Garcia was about one-third higher for the same service.

For example, Garcia charged $1,400 for preparation and shipment of Victor Avila’s body to Mexico City after the 30-year-old man was fatally shot on Dec. 16, Pliscou said. That was $400 higher than Castaneda Mortuary in Los Angeles had charged in a similar Ventura County case where the cheapest casket and preparation also were used, the lawyer said.

In a second case, Garcia charged $2,250 to prepare and ship the body of Jaime Ordaz to Oaxaca after he died in an auto accident in late November, Pliscou said. Castaneda quoted a maximum price of $1,500 for what seemed to be the same service, the lawyer said.

Pliscou said he recently asked Garcia to lower his price in the Avila case, and he did so.

Zoila Arroyo de Rodriguez, Mexican consul in Oxnard, said she also has occasionally asked Garcia to lower his price to match his Los Angeles competitor because poor families complained to her that they could not afford the higher charge.

“When people would come to me and say, ‘Mr. Garcia is charging this amount and I don’t have it,’ I would check with Mr. Castaneda, and he was always lower. . . $300, $400 or $500,” the consul said.

Garcia, who was born in Mexico, said he handles the bulk of body shipments to Mexico from Ventura County because he is so familiar with the procedure, knows cooperating funeral directors in Mexico, charges a reasonable price and is well-known throughout the community.

He also benefits because he is bilingual and has a Spanish name, he said. Garcia Mortuary is the only funeral home owned by a Latino in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties and the only one to advertise in the telephone directory in Spanish, he said. Oxnard is about 60% Latino and his business about 80%.

In the 13 years since he opened his business, Garcia said he has also become a familiar face at local hospitals and the coroner’s office and knows nurses and investigators well.

Of the coroner’s office, the 44-year-old mortician said he doubts that investigators make referrals.

Garcia said he sometimes lowers his prices to help families, but he denied ever cutting them to match a competitor’s. He said that sometimes the Mexican consul does call to ask if he will charge less, “but I don’t care if she is the consul, really. I deal with the immediate family.”

Garcia said that if he cuts his price, it is out of concern for his customer.

Garcia last week quoted a minimum rate of $1,552 for preparing and shipping a body to Mexico City. That charge includes $350 for a casket-shaped cardboard box in which a body is flown.

Gilbert Castaneda, an East Los Angeles mortician who said he ships about 300 bodies a year to Mexico, gave an $1,100 estimate for the same minimum service. His cheapest casket for such trips costs $110, he said. Castaneda’s air freight estimate was $326 compared to Garcia’s at $426. Both morticians said their charges included transportation of the body from Ventura County and its delivery to a family residence in Mexico City.

Garcia said he did not know how his prices compare with competitors. But quotations from Ventura County morticians last week indicated that his price is comparable to local funeral homes.

In fact, several mortuary managers mentioned Garcia favorably when asked about forwarding bodies to Mexico. A Santa Paula funeral home, Skillin-Carroll Mortuary, uses Garcia as a subcontractor to arrange for such shipments because of his familiarity with the process.

“Mr. Garcia knows all the funeral homes in Mexico and is able to work with them. Whatever is needed, he is able to do,” Skillin-Carroll manager George Harper said.

Coroner Lovell said Garcia’s shipment of bodies to Mexico was also raised as an issue several years ago by the previous Mexican consul in Oxnard.

The consul “wanted us to refer all deaths to him because he would get them all done cheaper out of L.A.,” Lovell said. “But we’ve never had any problem with Garcia. We’ve always had an excellent relationship with him. He will help us and the families, even if he doesn’t get the body.”

Garcia has helped find the families of Mexicans who have died locally with no known survivors and did not charge the county, said Ronald L. O’Halloran, assistant coroner.

Garcia’s relationship with the coroner’s office caught Pliscou’s attention, the lawyer said, partly because one of his clients had coroner investigator Craig Stevens’ business card with Garcia’s name, business name and phone number written on the back.

Pliscou said he is checking with other Mexican families to see how many say they were also referred to Garcia Mortuary. A third Mexican man has told Pliscou that the coroner’s staff referred him to Garcia, the lawyer said.

Stevens said such allegations are nonsense.

“We do not make any referrals,” he said. “But if we are asked for phone numbers, my card is about the only thing I’ve got to write a number down. If they have a mortuary in mind, and I’ve got the number, I’ll write it down.”

Stevens said he does not care what a mortuary specializes in and that it is up to customers to shop for the best deal.

“None of us keeps track of who’s charging what. It’s the business of the family to get the best price,” he said. “If they only call one place, they get charged what that place is billing them.”