Two sentenced for morgue photos

CINCINNATI, April 16 (UPI) -- A judge Tuesday sentenced a commercial photographer and former deputy coroner to prison for taking pictures of corpses at the county morgue.

Photographer Thomas Condon was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and former Deputy Coroner Jonathan Tobias was sentenced to five months and ordered to perform community service on charges of gross abuse of a corpse. Sentences are scheduled to start April 29. The two remain free on bond.

"You exposed part of their bodies. You put objects on them. You took pictures. That's not what people need in the grieving process," Judge Norbert Nadel said. He called the morgue photographs an "idiotic art project."

The offenses occurred between August 2000 and January 2001. The bodies were posed with such items as keys, sea shells, sheet music and fruit. A photo processing lab alerted police to the pictures.

Tobias was a pathology resident at the time and gave Condon access to the morgue.

Nadel called the pictures "sick ... disgusting ... disrespectful ... (and) the worst form of invasion of privacy."

Before sentence was imposed, Condon defended his actions.

"All of the intended meanings were life-affirming and positive," he said, admitting his "honest artistic endeavor" also was a bit "shortsighted." He said he had no intention of intentionally inflicting pain. Tobias declined to speak.

"They were our loved ones and none of us, I'm sure, would ever have granted permission to do anything of this nature," Denise Thomas, who lost a 19-year-old son, told the sentencing hearing.

Attorneys for Condon and Tobias said they would appeal.

A class action suit by the families of those photographed has been filed against Condon, Tobias, the county and the coroner.