Judge rules state can seize over $50M in assets from Vallejo businessman’s cemeteries

VALLEJO – A Solano County Superior Court judge has cleared the way for a state agency to seize over $50 million in cemetery trust fund assets from cemetery businesses controlled by prominent Vallejo businessman Buck Kamphausen and his partners.

In a judgment Thursday, Judge Christine Carringer wrote that Kamphausen and his partners’ further management of the funds would be “hazardous” to the cemeteries’ plot holders and other members of the public.

Carringer affirmed that the California Cemetery and Funeral Bureau, the state agency that oversees most cemeteries in California, now controls the funds of four of Kamphausen’s cemeteries: Skyview Memorial Lawn in Vallejo, Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, Mt. Tamalpais Cemetery in San Rafael, and Chapel of the Light in Fresno.

Kamphausen and his partners allowed Mt. Tamalpais Cemetery to fall into a “severely deteriorated and deplorable state” that is “unsafe and hazardous” due to rodent holes and mounds, broken tree branches on roads and walkways, tipped over headstones, animal feces, and tall weeds obscuring grave markers, Carringer wrote in her judgement.

California law requires cemetery trust funds, which are seeded by plot holders, be prudently invested to care for and maintain cemeteries. According to Carringer, Kamphausen and his partners improperly invested the trust funds by using over $1 million to purchase uninsured solid gold, storing funds in checking accounts, and purchasing no stocks. 

The trust funds also include at least 15 properties in Vallejo. Residents have complained that Kamphausen has neglected some of these properties, sending over two dozen complaints to the city over 10 of these properties between 2015 and 2023 over issues ranging from trash being left outside, graffiti, to dislodging bricks falling onto the sidewalk. 

The most complained about building is the old Crowley Department Store at 436 Georgia St. in the heart of downtown Vallejo, which has remained vacant since an earthquake damaged it in 2014. It garnered eight complaints between 2018 and 2021. 

Kamphausen and his partners technically still manage the cemeteries, but as a result of Carringer’s judgement, the cemeteries’ trust funds are under bureau control. Kamphausen and his partners will have to get permission from the bureau any time they wish to use the funds to ensure they are used solely for the care and maintenance of the cemeteries. The bureau also has the power to sell off any of the cemeteries’ trust fund assets.

Kamphausen and an attorney for the cemeteries did not respond for requests for comment.

State efforts to wrest control of Kamphausen’s cemeteries date back to at least the spring of 2022, when the bureau filed a formal accusation against cemetery operator Kamphausen and his partners Joshua Voss and Edward Wilkes. The accusation alleged that they had been mishandling the cemeteries’ financial reports for over a decade by turning them in years late or not turning them in at all. It also alleged the owners had been failing to maintain the grounds of Evergreen and Mt. Tamalpais cemeteries since 2019. 

In the accusation, the bureau asked that Kamphausen, Voss, and Wilkes’ license to operate cemeteries be revoked. In October 2023, Kamphausen, Voss, and Wilkes agreed to surrender their licenses. 

Despite surrendering their licenses, Kamphausen and Voss attempted to continue to manage the cemeteries and their assets. 

In June 2022, about four months before giving up their licenses, Kamphausen and Voss transferred ownership of the cemeteries to a nonprofit religious organization called Evergreen Ministries, which was run by Kamphausen and Voss along with Bishop Ray Jackson, a chaplain with Vallejo’s police and fire departments. While the bureau oversees most cemeteries in California, state law does not allow it to oversee cemeteries run by a religious organization.

Control of the cemetery assets were in dispute since July 2023, when the bureau petitioned Solano County Superior Court to take control of the assets. In court filings, Kamphausen’s lawyers said that Evergreen Ministries is a religious organization and therefore exempt from bureau oversight. In their own filings, lawyers with the bureau called the transfer of cemetery assets to Evergreen Ministries as self dealing and a ploy to avoid oversight, and said that the organization and its owners lack the license to control cemetery trust funds.

Initially, Carringer blocked the bureau from seizing the cemetery assets by granting Kamphausen and his partners a temporary restraining order in September 2023. But a state Court of Appeal vacated Carringer’s order in December of that year, allowing the bureau to proceed with the seizure. Kamphausen and his partners then argued Carringer should reinstate the order and dissolve the seizure. Carringer held an evidentiary hearing over six days last year to decide the issue.

In her judgement, Carringer found that all four cemeteries had received citations for failing to file or untimely filing of financial reports. She wrote that an accountant for the cemeteries  laid blame for mishandling financial reports on a former accountant for Kamphausen but also testified that Kamphausen signed all the reports.

Carringer found that Mt. Tamalpais Cemetery had fallen into disrepair, and that Kamphausen and his partners had failed to comply with state law that required them to notify plot holders and the public of a change in ownership. She cited Jackson’s testimony that he was unaware of the bureau’s notification requirements.

In her judgement, Carringer also wrote that “Evergreen Ministries does not appear to be a religious organization,” and questioned Jackson’s involvement with the organization. Although Jackson is Evergreen Ministries' CEO, he testified that he has no background in financial matters or cemetery maintenance and he never met with the trustees of the cemeteries, Carringer wrote. Carringer also cited Voss’s testimony that Evergreen Ministries was set up “to help save on expenses” such as property taxes.

Carringer determined that a practice of presenting “deceptive or false information and documentation was clearly evident” in Kamphausen and his partners management of the cemeteries. She also noted that cemetery trust funds must be run by a licensed cemetery owner, and no one at Evergreen Ministries has such a license.

Leadership of Kol Shofar, a Jewish congregation that has a contract to inter its members at Mt. Tamalpais, were pleased with the ruling.

“Protecting these funds from further misuse is the first step to cleaning up the deteriorating Mt. Tam cemetery,” Kevin Frankel, a lawyer representing Kol Shofar, wrote in an email. “We are pleased to have provided our voice to the interred, who have none, and to the families of the interred, who deserve a peaceful, well-maintained resting place to visit their departed loved ones.”

Jan Carragher, whose family members are interred at Mt. Tamalpais and testified to the cemetery’s deteriorated state, struck a cautiously optimistic tone in an email.

“Our issues and concerns with the cemetery may not be over, but I feel this decision goes a long way in validating our case,” she wrote.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify the content of Bishop Ray Jackson's testimony.