Hunter Ordered Campaign Deposit, J. David Aide Says

A former J. David & Co. employee testified Tuesday that she was following the direction of Nancy Hoover Hunter when she deposited company funds into her own checking account so she could make a contribution to Roger Hedgecock’s 1983 mayoral campaign.

Betsy Milich, who was director of community relations at J. David for about one year before the collapse of the firm, said Hunter offered her $500 from the community relations account, which contained money that was normally donated to charitable groups.

Hunter “asked me if I was for Roger Hedgecock,” Milich testified at Hunter’s fraud and tax evasion trial. “She said, ‘Why don’t you make a contribution? You can take it out of our account.’ ”

Prosecutors allege that tax deductions Hunter took against business losses were illegal because the firm she had invested in, Tom Shepard & Associates, was set up to illegally funnel money into the Hedgecock campaign.

Most of the 197 charges against Hunter, however, concern her alleged participation in the giant Ponzi scheme masterminded by Hunter’s former lover, J. David (Jerry) Dominelli, who is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence.

When confronted with a rumor that J. David & Co. was a bogus business, Hunter blamed it on jealous traders who were not experiencing the same success as those at the La Jolla investment house, Milich testified.

“People just get jealous” when confronted with success, Milich quoted Hunter as saying when asked about the rumors.

Milich made the remark while she was testifying about a meeting she had with Dominelli and Hunter after she had been told that J. David was “a house of cards that was going to fall.”

Hunter’s attorneys maintain that Hunter was completely unaware of the giant fraud, which cost 1,200 people nearly $90 million, because she was in love with Dominelli, a man considered by many at the time to be a genius trader.