San Diego

Nancy Hoover Hunter, convicted in December of four counts of federal tax evasion, will have to wait another two weeks in jail to be sentenced, a law clerk to U.S. District Judge Earl B. Gilliam said Wednesday.

Hunter’s sentencing hearing, originally scheduled for Feb. 20, has been pushed back to March 6 in order to give both prosecutors and Hunter’s defense lawyers more time to prepare, the clerk said.

Hunter, 51, a former Del Mar mayor, faces up to 20 years in prison, or five years apiece on each of the four counts of tax evasion. Immediately following Hunter’s Dec. 11 conviction, Gilliam, who presided over her eight-month trial, ordered her to await sentencing at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center without bail.

The jury that convicted Hunter acquitted her on one other tax-related charge but deadlocked on 192 other counts, primarily conspiracy and fraud charges stemming from her purported involvement in a Ponzi scheme run by the La Jolla investment firm J. David & Co. from 1979 to 1984.

Prosecutors alleged that Hunter, a top executive at the firm, created false documents both to lure investors to J. David and then to lull them into staying put while the firm headed toward bankruptcy. Investors lost about $80 million in the J. David affair.

Prosecutors have said they plan a retrial on the 192 counts.