Attorneys for two alleged victims of Patrick Vereband Eternity Pet Memorial have filed a class-action lawsuit on their behalf and thethousands of other reported victims.
Vereb is facing charges after prosecutors said he threw out the bodies of thousands of pets and gave owners the ashes of other animals.
After a whistleblowerraised several red flags about her time as an intern at Vereb Funeral Home, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office charged the Hazelwood funeral home owner with multiple felony counts of fraud, accusing him of taking more than $600,000 in payments from grief-stricken pet owners, but dumping their pets’ bodies in landfills instead of cremating them.
On Friday, attorney Rob Peirce of Robert Peirce and Associates said his firm and the firm Lynch Carpenter are teaming up on a class-action lawsuit to go after Vereb and his businesses.
He said while the lawsuit seeks to reimburse them for the memorial services they paid for but never received, it’s also about getting answers about what happened to their animals.
“We know that there’s a challenge in front of us,” Peirce said. “We are embracing that challenge. And as you can see with two of our clients here today, these are people that cared greatly about animals. These animals were members of their family, and they thoroughly believe their family was not treated with any type of respect.”
Peirce said that while the criminal charges filed by the AG’s office only cover the period between 2021 and 2024, they want to hear from anyone who used Eternity Pet Memorial and Vereb’s services and has questions about whether or not their pet was properly laid to rest.
KDKA-TV Investigative Producer Tory Wegerski contributed to this report.
