U.S. Drops Case Against Ex-J. David & Co. Executive

U.S. Atty. William Braniff said Friday that the government has dropped charges against Edward J. Pulaski Jr., a former executive charged in the J. David & Co. $80-million investment scam.

Pulaski’s retrial was scheduled to begin Nov. 5. In 1988, he had been charged, along with former Del Mar Mayor Nancy Hoover Hunter and three others, with conspiracy to use the mail to sell unregistered securities and using the mail to sell unregistered securities.

Pulaski’s first trial, which began June 25, 1991, ended in a mistrial when the jury deadlocked after three weeks of deliberations. At the time, Pulaski had been charged with one count of conspiring to use the mails to sell unregistered securities and six counts of using the mail to sell unregistered securities.

He could have been sentenced to 35 years in prison and a $70,000 fine if convicted.

Braniff said the government decided not to have a retrial because there was no reasonable assurance that a second trial would have a different result.

Given the heavy caseload in the district, it would not have been in the public interest to consume scarce resources without a greater expectation of a successful outcome, Braniff said.

The government alleged that Hoover Hunter, former president of J. David & Co., collaborated with her boyfriend, J. David (Jerry) Dominelli, the company’s founder, in promoting a Ponzi scheme that bilked 1,500 investment clients out of millions of dollars from 1979 to 1984.

Hoover Hunter was convicted in December, 1989, of four counts of tax evasion and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Dominelli pleaded guilty to fraud and tax evasion, and was sentenced to a 20-year prison term.