Grave dispute leads to charges

Burial plots sold on land outside cemetery

A long-running dispute about graves on land surrounding a Bartlett-area cemetery has led to a criminal charge of theft against the cemetery owner.

A Shelby County District Attorney’s Office investigator on Friday charged Jemar Lambert, 36, of Memphis with felony theft, according to a court affidavit. Lambert was released with no bond required.

The district attorney investigators report that Lambert was aware that since last August, about 20 to 25 graves at Galilee Memorial Gardens Cemetery had been located on adjacent land owned by a type of charitable trust of Martha and Robert Fogelman, a Memphis developer and philanthropist.

Each burial plot in the “Paradise” section of the cemetery cost at least $995. Knowingly selling burial plots to people on land that didn’t belong to the cemetery constitutes theft of property, the investigators contend.

The criminal charge follows a civil court battle between the trust and Lambert’s father, Jesse Lambert, over graves intruding on the trust’s land, which surrounds Galilee Memorial Gardens on three sides. The cemetery is at 8283 Ellis Road.

Coleman W. Garrett, an attorney representing Jemar Lambert, said he doesn’t understand the criminal charge when the matter remains an issue in civil court.

“I think this doesn’t smell good in that it was apparently brought by the DA’S investigators,” Garrett said.

“I just don’t understand how it got to be a criminal matter,” he said. “If there is encroachment, then it is still a civil matter.”

In a statement e -mailed by a spokesman, Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich said: “While we cannot comment on the substance of pending criminal charges, we can say that based on evidence uncovered by our investigators, a neutral magistrate found probable cause to issue a warrant for the arrest of the defendant on criminal charges in this matter.”

“The district attorney never represents individual citizens,” Weirich said. “As in every case, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office represents the interests of the people of the state of Tennessee by prosecuting criminal behavior that affects the citizens of Shelby County.”

A decade ago, the trust sued Jesse Lambert in Chancery Court, accusing Galilee Memorial Gardens of placing about 75 marked and unmarked graves on the trust’s land.

In October 2004, Chancellor Walter Evans signed a consent order that would have allowed Lambert to pay $98,000 in damages and in exchange get title to the disputed land with the graves. Lambert later told the court that he couldn’t arrange financing and he attempted to file for bankruptcy. He died in May 2010 at age 72.

The lawsuit against him concluded the same month he died, but the trust last September filed a fresh suit against Jemar Lambert and his sister, Marje Lambert, in Chancery Court. — Kevin Mckenzie:

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