Prosecutors Claim Hunter Doesn’t Deserve New Trial
Nancy Hoover Hunter does not deserve a new trial on four counts of tax evasion, federal prosecutors said in legal papers that urged a judge to reject defense contentions that Hunter was improperly convicted.
In legal papers filed earlier this month, Hunter’s defense attorneys said that the former Del Mar mayor was convicted of a phantom tax law and that U.S. District Judge Earl B. Gilliam, who presided over her eight-month trial, improperly pressured the jury to reach a verdict.
Responding to those claims, prosecutors said in papers filed late Friday that there was no evidence that jurors based their verdict on anything but what was heard at the trial. The papers were made available Monday to reporters.
Further, prosecutors claimed, although Gilliam did tell jurors after six days of deliberations that they should have a verdict, that was a slip that they said he later corrected. Since the jury actually deliberated 16 days, the remark could not have been that damaging, prosecutors said.
When the jury came back Dec. 11, it convicted Hunter of the four tax-evasion counts, acquitted her of one other tax charge but deadlocked on 192 other counts, primarily fraud and conspiracy stemming from her role as a top executive at the failed La Jolla investment firm J. David & Co.
About 1,500 investors lost $80 million in the J. David affair, a Ponzi scheme in which new investors’ money was used from 1979 to 1984 to pay off old investors and little actual trading was done.
Prosecutors, who contend Hunter played a key role in the scandal, have said they plan a second trial on the 192 counts. Defense attorneys Richard Marmaro of Los Angeles and Robert Brewer of San Diego want that second trial to be on 196 counts.
Gilliam has set a March 6 hearing on the defense request. If he denies it, Hunter, who has been in jail without bail since her conviction, is scheduled to be sentenced that same day.
Hunter could be sentenced to 20 years in prison, five years on each of the four counts.
Hunter’s first trial is believed to be the longest-running case in the history of the San Diego federal court.
