Pleas Changed To Guilty In 'Weekend At Bernie's' Case

DENVER (CBS4) - Two men have pleaded guilty to abuse of a corpse after they were accused of driving around with their dead friend in the car and using the man's credit cards.

Robert Young and Mark Rubinson were in court on Thursday and took plea deals. Those deals allowed each of them to have some of the more serious felony charges they had been facing dropped.

Young and Rubinson's story has been compared the 1980's movie "Weekend at Bernie's," where two men take their dead boss on a vacation.

Each blamed the other for what happened that August 2010 night when they took the body of Jeff Jarret, 43, with them as they went to visit bars and restaurants and also allegedly stopped at Shotgun Willie's, a strip club. They also took money out of Jarrett's account at an ATM. All that was before they told police their friend might be dead.

The medical examiner said Jarrett died with cocaine and alcohol in his system.

Young pleaded guilty to identity theft and abuse of a corpse. His criminal impersonation charges were dropped. Rubinson pleaded guilty to abuse of a corpse.

In exchange, felony counts of identity theft and criminal impersonation were dropped.

The night apparently started when Young went to Jarret's home and found him unresponsive. Instead of calling for help, he and Rubinson put him in the car for a night out.

After he had died, they carried Jarret's body into his bedroom and went out and used his credit cards again.

Young told CBS4 in an interview late last year that his good friend deserved better than that and that he felt bad about what happened.