PHILADELPHIA — Two brothers who ran a pair of funeral homes and a crematorium admitted Tuesday they sold corpses to a company that trafficked in stolen body parts.

Louis and Gerald Garzone pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy, theft, abusing corpses and welfare fraud.

The gruesome allegations read in court drew gasps, murmurs and tears from about two dozen people who had entrusted the bodies of their loved ones to the Garzones' facilities in Philadelphia.

The mastermind of the scheme, Michael Mastromarino, pleaded guilty Friday to hundreds of charges that could send him to prison for life. He is already serving 18 to 54 years for running the scam in New York.

Mastromarino's company, Fort Lee, N.J.-based Biomedical Tissue Services, took bodies from funeral homes in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Mastromarino paid the Garzones and their partner, James McCafferty, more than $245,000 for at least 244 cadavers between February 2004 and October 2005, prosecutors said.