Hunter’s Lawyer to Defend Her Again
Nancy Hoover Hunter’s lawyer agreed to stay on her case through her next trial, U.S. District Judge Earl B. Gilliam’s office announced Wednesday.
Richard Marmaro had threatened last week to step down as Hunter’s counsel unless he could make “adequate arrangements,” apparently financial, to stay on. But, in a closed hearing Wednesday, Marmaro told Gilliam that he will commit himself to representing Hunter, already convicted of tax evasion, in a second trial, the judge’s law clerk said.
Gilliam has imposed a gag order on lawyers in the case, so Marmaro, who is based in Los Angeles, could not detail any “arrangements.” Defense costs at Hunter’s first trial have been reported to be near $2 million.
Hunter, 51, a former Del Mar mayor, was convicted in December after an eight-month trial of four counts of tax evasion. A jury acquitted her of one other tax charge but deadlocked on 192 other counts, primarily fraud and conspiracy charges stemming from her role as a top executive at the failed La Jolla investment firm of J. David & Co.
About 1,500 investors lost $80 million in the J. David affair, a Ponzi scheme in which money from new investors was used to pay off old investors and little actual trading was done. Federal prosecutors, who have charged that Hunter played a key role in the scandal, have said they plan a second trial on the 192 counts. Two weeks ago, Marmaro and local counsel Robert Brewer asked for a retrial on the tax evasion counts, claiming that the jury found Hunter guilty of a phantom tax law and that Gilliam improperly pressured the jury.
Hunter’s defense lawyers also requested that a second trial be held in San Francisco, saying she can’t get a fair trial in San Diego because there has been so much publicity about her.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Gilliam set a March 20 hearing on that request and announced that he will not set a date for the second trial--with or without the four tax evasion counts--until after he decides where the second trial should be held, the law clerk said. A decision on a date is not likely until six to eight weeks after the hearing, the clerk said.
Hunter, who has been in jail without bail since being convicted, is scheduled to be sentenced March 6 on the four tax counts. The sentencing hearing would be canceled, however, if Gilliam grants the defense request for a new trial, which is scheduled to be heard on the same day.
Once Hunter’s second trial ends, whether on 192 or 196 counts, she faces yet another trial on charges of securities violations connected to the J. David affair.
