Dad puts 2 large photo posters at Navy son's grave, leading to litigation
Fred Molai says he purchased 15 plots at Standing Rock Cemetery in Kent, Ohio, before creating a shrine to his dead son there that is 16 feet wide and eight feet high, covering only five of the plots.
In addition to a tombstone engraved with the picture of Adam Molai, 23, it includes 10 American flags and a display of silk flowers. But it is the two poster-size photos of the late U.S. Navy petty officer, who died in a 2011 rafting accident, set on nearly eight-foot poles, that perturbed city officials in charge of cemetery operations. They say that Fred Molai wasn’t given permission to put them up. He says no cemetery rule prohibits them, reports the Akron Beacon Journal.
Threatened with having the photos removed if he didn’t take them down, Molai sued the cemetery and Portage County in common pleas court there. A magistrate judge initially granted a restraining order, but ruled earlier this month that he must file a complaint with the Ohio Cemetery Dispute Resolution Committee of the Ohio Department of Commerce. Molai says he will do so, the newspaper reports.
Molai said he visits his son’s grave every day and created the large memorial display there because “I cannot have a limit for the love I have for my son.”
The Associated Press also has a story.
