Qualls is the first individual the State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors has had to ask the courts to rein in, said Jennifer Baugess, compliance administrative assistant for the board.
“The board itself in the Ohio Revised Code still does not have direct authority of unlicensed individuals, but they do have the ability to approach the court and ask for an injunction or restraining order against a person who the board believes to be practicing without a license,” Baugess said.
Qualls was called into Clark County Common Pleas Court to defend against allegations that he violated a February 2010 injunction by acting as a funeral director without a license.
Qualls lost his license in 2007 after being charged with stealing $88,000 worth of preneed money during a two-year period while at Porter-Qualls Funeral Home at 823 S. Yellow Springs St.
Now the Ohio Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors and Ohio Attorney General’s Office are investigating whether Qualls may have stolen more money from unsuspecting families.
“I feel like he should apologize to families,” said Sierra Cunningham, whose father’s funeral was arranged by Qualls in 2008.
She has received no receipts or documentation for the $2,200 funeral that Qualls handled.
As a result, she has been unable to retrieve her dad’s ashes or receive reimbursement from the Dayton VA Medical Center. Her father, 61-year-old Edward Cunningham, was a Marine veteran.
“You hurt us,” she said as if she was speaking to Qualls. “You know, you have your own troubles, that’s fine; but why bring all of us into it?”
Paul Hardiman, an 85-year-old at Mercy St. John’s Center at 199 McCreight Ave., made funeral arrangements with Jim Qualls in 2005, when Qualls was still licensed. According to court documents, Hardiman wrote a check for more than $6,500 made out to Qualls.
In an affidavit submitted in January, Hardiman said the funds have not been placed in an insurance fund or trust, and that he had no documentation to show where the money was or how it was used.
When Hardiman passed away June 3, “I discovered the monies paid (to) James E. Qualls III were not invested as stated on the funeral contract,” testified a member of the Hardiman family in an affidavit on June 15.
Hardiman is also not in any Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors pre-need reports, which funeral directors must file yearly.
Sierra Cunningham said files pertaining to the funeral of her father, Edward Cunningham, are also missing. She has spent the last three years trying to find out how her father’s funeral was paid for and what happened to the money. Her family paid Qualls $500 in cash, and Qualls told her “the community took care of it,” she said.
As her father’s next of kin, she put Qualls in charge of all funeral ar-rangements as well as providing documentation to the VA to get reimbursements for flags and bronze markers used in the funeral.
She did not know at the time that Qualls had al- ready lost his funeral director’s license.
According to a letter from the VA in 2010, they never received any documentation from Qualls. The two-year limit to apply for reimbursement has already passed.
Qualls left Porter-Qualls at the end of 2010. He now works at DB Washington Funeral Home on South Yellow Springs Street — owned by his wife Tammy Qualls with Dean Washington as funeral director — which has also had issues with the Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors.
Calls to Qualls’ attorney, William Bell of Cincinnati, have not been returned.
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