{"id":307260,"date":"2026-10-15T15:02:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T15:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/307260\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T15:02:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T15:02:18","slug":"pittsburgh-area-funeral-home-director-patrick-vereb-accused-of-pet-cremation-fraud-takes-plea-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/307260\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh-area funeral home director Patrick Vereb accused of pet cremation fraud takes plea deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">PITTSBURGH \u2014 A former Pittsburgh-area funeral home director <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/news\/local\/pittsburgh-funeral-home-owner-accused-dumping-pets-landfill-instead-cremating-them\/7TIVX7MJCNCJHF7BUHZRHV3TJU\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/news\/local\/pittsburgh-funeral-home-owner-accused-dumping-pets-landfill-instead-cremating-them\/7TIVX7MJCNCJHF7BUHZRHV3TJU\/\">accused of deceiving more than 6,500 pet owners<\/a> who paid for burial services but instead received ashes belonging to something else will take a plea deal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Patrick Vereb, 70, was in court Thursday for jury selection, but Channel 11 has learned he took a plea deal that will spare him a trial. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Vereb, former owner of Vereb Funeral Home and Eternity Pet Memorial, was charged in April 2024 with improper disposal of thousands of dogs and cats for which owners paid for cremations, burials, returns of ashes and other services between 2021 and 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Following an extensive investigation, the Attorney General\u2019s Office identified more than 6,500 victims from Allegheny, Armstrong, Washington and Westmoreland counties.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Last year, families across Western Pennsylvania turned to 11 Investigates with questions about their loved ones\u2019 remains after new allegations against funeral director Patrick Vereb. Two former Vereb Funeral Home employees<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/news\/local\/family-questions-whats-their-loved-ones-urn-following-investigation-into-local-funeral-director\/NJ334WCR5VD7JBHN5ZWL2FH7PM\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/news\/local\/family-questions-whats-their-loved-ones-urn-following-investigation-into-local-funeral-director\/NJ334WCR5VD7JBHN5ZWL2FH7PM\/\"> allege their former boss mishandled human remains<\/a> at his Hazelwood funeral home. They both tell 11 Investigates they sat down for hours of interviews with a state investigator. Vereb has never been charged in relation to these allegations. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Vereb will take the plea deal later this month. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Previous coverage:<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>TOP STORIES FROM CHANNEL 11 NEWS <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph body-copyright\">\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH \u2014 A former Pittsburgh-area funeral home director accused of deceiving more than 6,500 pet owners who paid&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[125996,125998,125997,67870,125999,73,75,74,84492,125995],"class_list":["post-307260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-eternity-pet-memorial","tag-funeral-home-director","tag-improper-disposal-of-animals","tag-patrick-vereb","tag-pet-remain-fraud","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-plea-deal","tag-vereb-funeral-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}