4 former cemetery workers plead not guilty to charges that accuse them of digging up graves

4 cemetery desecration suspects plead not guilty

CHICAGO — Four former cemetery workers have pleaded not guilty to charges that accused them of digging up bodies at a historic suburban Chicago graveyard in order to resell the burial plots.

Attorneys entered the pleas Tuesday. All four defendants indicated that they understood the charges. The judge scheduled their next hearing for Sept. 25.

The four face several felony charges, including desecration of human remains, conspiracy to dismember human bodies and theft. The most serious charge — dismembering a human body — carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.

The four were arrested in July when authorities raided Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, which is the resting place of civil rights-era lynching victim Emmett Till and other prominent African-Americans.