Hedgecock Case Figures to Plead Guilty

Two key figures in the Roger Hedgecock campaign money-laundering case have tentatively agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy charges today, it was learned Thursday.

The plea-bargain arrangement would all but end prosecution in the case that led to the conviction and resignation of the former mayor.

The proposed plea bargain for Nancy Hoover and Tom Shepard was confirmed Thursday by one of the defense lawyers and the San Diego County district attorney’s office.

Hoover is the former business associate and live-in companion of J. David (Jerry) Dominelli, the convicted financial swindler who earlier this year pleaded guilty to conspiring to illegally finance Hedgecock’s 1983 mayoral campaign.

Shepard was Hedgecock’s chief aide when he was a county supervisor and later ran the political consulting firm through which the illegal funds were allegedly funneled.

Hoover reportedly will plead guilty to one felony count of conspiracy, pay a $10,000 fine, serve about 350 hours of community service and be placed on three years’ probation. She would not, however, go to jail.

Shepard reportedly has agreed to plead guilty to one misdemeanor count of conspiracy and the payment of a $1,000 fine, as well as serving 200 hours in community-related activities and being placed on three years’ probation. Like Hoover, he would avoid a jail term.

In December, Hedgecock was sentenced to one year in local custody, as well as being assessed a $1,000 fine and three years’ probation. He remains free while the sentence is being appealed.

Neither Steve Casey, a spokesman for the district attorney, nor George Wetzel, an attorney for Shepard, would elaborate on the terms of the plea-bargain agreement, scheduled to be entered in Municipal Court today.

“We’ve had discussions with the defendants for a substantial period of time . . . and we feel you never have a plea bargain (officially) until it is introduced in open court,” Casey said.

Casey said he was being cautious because of his concern that one condition that led to the agreement had already been broken. That condition stipulated that the contents of the agreement were to remain confidential until today’s court session. Word of the agreement, however, was leaked Thursday evening.

A spokeswoman for Wetzel said the agreement is final. She confirmed the provisions of the plea bargain for both Shepard and Hoover. Wetzel, however, declined to be interviewed, and the attorney for Hoover, Dwight Worden, was unavailable for comment.

The tentative plea bargain closes another chapter in the Hedgecock saga. Both Hoover and Shepard have vehemently denied over the last two years that they conspired to illegally finance Hedgecock’s winning campaign.

But in the last several months that story began to crumble. First, Hedgecock was found guilty of 13 felony counts of perjury and conspiracy. Then Dominelli, serving a federal prison sentence for defrauding investors involved in his J. David & Co., entered a guilty plea in February to conspiracy charges. He was sentenced to a two-year prison sentence, to run concurrently with his 20-year federal sentence.

Dominelli said in a sworn affidavit at the time that he, Hoover, Shepard and Hedgecock met several times in 1981 and 1982 to devise a scheme to subvert the city’s $250-per-person campaign contribution limit.

Hedgecock has steadfastly denied that such meetings took place or that such an agreement was made. Hedgecock was unavailable for comment Thursday night.

The first signs of Hedgecock’s involvement surfaced in February, 1984, when he admitted he received a $130,000 loan to renovate his home based on an oral agreement with Hoover.

It was later learned that Hoover and Dominelli had invested more than $360,000 in Tom Shepard & Associates, a political consulting firm that was created in part to run Hedgecock campaigns in 1983 and 1984.

The district attorney’s office has argued that the political consulting firm served as a conduit for illegal donations to Hedgecock’s 1983 campaign from Dominelli’s now-defunct investment firm and Hoover. Hedgecock has said the money that Dominelli and Hoover invested in Shepard’s consulting company was a “routine business investment” designed primarily to help Shepard start his own business, and not to get Hedgecock elected.