Couple Convicted of Misappropriating Funeral Funds : Trial: The wife is found guilty of illegally removing and selling body parts at mortuary; husband is found not guilty of same charges.

In one of the county’s longest-running criminal prosecutions, a Superior Court jury on Thursday found the former owners of a Pasadena mortuary guilty of misappropriating $100,000 in interest earnings from customer trust accounts.

Returning verdicts on eight of 30 charges filed against Jerry W. Sconce, 60, and his wife, Laurieanne Sconce, 57, jurors found Jerry Sconce not guilty on four counts of illegally removing and selling body parts from corpses before they were cremated.

The four-woman, eight-man jury found Laurieanne Sconce guilty on three of four counts of unlawfully authorizing the removal of eyes, hearts, lungs and brains from bodies prior to cremation. The jury also found Laurieanne Sconce guilty on three counts of forging customer signatures on organ donor and cremation authorization forms.

The jury deliberated 14 days before returning partial verdicts Thursday morning at the judge’s request. They continued deliberations on the 22 remaining counts Thursday afternoon.

The couple, separated by their two attorneys, sat expressionless as a court clerk read the verdicts. After the verdicts were read, Jerry Sconce jumped from his seat and ran to his wife’s side. Laurieanne Sconce--her steel-gray hair, checked dress and pink sweater painting an image of a gracefully aging grandmother--sobbed on her husband’s shoulder.

Superior Court Judge John W. Ouderkirk will not set a date for sentencing until all the verdicts are in. The Sconces face a wide range of sentences: probation, fines or a maximum of six years in state prison, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Nishinaka.

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Jerry Sconce said the couple will appeal. Laurieanne Sconce was too shaken to comment.

Criminal charges were filed in 1987 against the couple and their son, David Sconce. David Sconce managed the family business, the Lamb Funeral Home, on Orange Grove Boulevard.

David Sconce pleaded guilty to 20 of the charges and has served a state prison sentence for those crimes. In 1992, after 36 charges against Jerry and Laurieanne Sconce had been dismissed by a Pasadena Superior Court judge, the couple was acquitted of three charges of co-mingling ashes of cremated corpses. A jury deadlocked on six counts of removing body parts without authorization.

In February, 1994, a state appellate court reinstated 34 of the 36 original charges against Jerry and Laurieanne Sconce. Prosecutors now want to retry David Sconce, who is serving a five-year sentence in Arizona on unrelated forgery charges.

David Sconce is also accused of plotting the murder of a business rival and conspiring to murder a prosecutor in the case.