Private Equity Firms Tied To Chicago Cemetery Scandal
In the panoply of scumbaggery, there's a special place reserved for four Chicago-area cemetery workers indicted earlier this month for digging up bodies in order to resell their grave-plots. The case has captivated and horrified the Midwest, and received national attention when it was believed that the desecrated corpses may have included that of civil rights-era lynching victim Emmett Till (his grave was not actually disturbed, but his original casket was found surrounded by garbage in a cemetery storage room). What has been mostly overlooked, however, is that the cemetery is managed by a company whose investors include at least two private equity firms: Pacesetter Capital Group (Richardson, Texas) and Milestone Growth Fund (Minneapolis). Both firms focus on small-cap, minority-owned businesses, and have received funding from the U.S. Small Business Administration. (Our database also includes investments from Opportunity Capital Partners and Banc of America Capital Investors, but it's unclear if either are still shareholders.)
