San Diego

After one week of deliberations, the jury in the fraud and tax-evasion trial of Nancy Hoover Hunter indicated Tuesday that it may deliberate for a long time.

The jurors sent a note to U. S. District Judge Earl B. Gilliam inquiring about the holiday schedule. The note said some jurors are trying to make vacation plans.

One juror said her family is planning to travel to the East Coast on Dec. 20.

The 197 charges against Hunter are in six categories: one count of conspiracy, four counts of tax evasion, one count of making a false statement to a federal agency, 85 counts of fraud by a commodities pool operator, 101 counts of mail fraud, and five counts of aiding and abetting in the preparation of a false tax return.

Each of the counts against Hunter carries a prison sentence ranging from three years to five years, as well as a fine of $1,000 to $500,000.

More than 150 witnesses--including Roger Hedgecock, a former San Diego mayor, and Hunter, a former mayor of Del Mar--have testified in the longest criminal trial in the history of San Diego federal court.

The jury is also examining about 2,000 pieces of evidence.

Hunter, 51, is charged with being an active member of the J. David & Co. Ponzi scheme, which caused about 1,200 people to lose $80 million. J. David (Jerry) Dominelli, the mastermind of the fraud and Hunter’s former lover, is serving 20 years in federal prison as a result of a 1985 plea bargain.

Hunter was an executive in several J. David entities, and she was Dominelli’s broker of record on many of his commodities trades.

Hunter’s attorneys have argued throughout the trial, which began in mid-April, that she was completely unaware of Dominelli’s activities because she was in love with him.