{"id":70749,"date":"2026-04-02T18:55:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T23:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/maryland-man-receives-20-year-sentence-for-pet-crematorium-scam\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T18:55:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T23:55:01","slug":"maryland-man-receives-20-year-sentence-for-pet-crematorium-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/maryland-man-receives-20-year-sentence-for-pet-crematorium-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"Maryland man receives 20-year sentence for pet crematorium scam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rodney Ward returned debris instead of pets\u2019 ashes and stored animals\u2019 bodies in hearse or threw them out on road<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/news\/2026\/feb\/17\/sign-up-for-the-breaking-news-us-email-to-get-newsletter-alerts-direct-to-your-inbox?utm_medium=ACQUISITIONS_STANDFIRST&amp;utm_campaign=BN22326&amp;utm_content=signup&amp;utm_term=standfirst&amp;utm_source=GUARDIAN_WEB\">Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A Baltimore county man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of defrauding <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/pets\">pet<\/a> owners through his fake crematorium business, returning rocks and sand to grieving victims instead of ashes.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, 56-year-old Rodney Ward was also ordered to pay $12,510 in restitution to victims. He had pleaded guilty to one count of felony theft and five counts of malicious destruction of property over $1,000, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wmar2news.com\/news\/region\/baltimore-county\/utter-betrayal-pet-crematorium-operator-gets-20-years-for-theft-causing-real-pain-to-owners\">the Baltimore county state\u2019s attorney\u2019s office<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/apr\/02\/maryland-20-year-sentence-pet-crematorium-scam\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rodney Ward returned debris instead of pets\u2019 ashes and stored animals\u2019 bodies in hearse or threw them out on road Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox A Baltimore county man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of defrauding pet owners &#8230; <a title=\"Maryland man receives 20-year sentence for pet crematorium scam\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/maryland-man-receives-20-year-sentence-for-pet-crematorium-scam\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Maryland man receives 20-year sentence for pet crematorium scam\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}