Ex-Del Mar Mayor to Be Freed From Prison

Nancy Hoover Hunter, the former mayor of Del Mar who was sentenced to federal prison for her role in the $80-million J. David & Co. investment fraud, has served her time behind bars and is due to be released today, authorities said.

Hunter, 53, who essentially served as second-in-command at the now-defunct La Jolla investment firm, has served about 30 months of her term, originally 10 years and later cut to 6 1/2 years, officials said. With good-time credits, she has become eligible for parole, authorities said.

“She was a good inmate,” said Bob Thurston, a spokesman for the minimum-security Geiger Corrections Center in Spokane, Wash., where Hunter shared a dormitory-like room with three other female inmates and worked as a math tutor and volunteer counselor. “She was infraction-free. She maintained a good attitude. I think she felt she learned a lot from this experience.”

J. David & Co. collapsed eight years ago after attracting thousands of affluent clients by promising investors unusually high returns. The company was running a Ponzi scheme, in which money from new investors was used to pay off old investors and little actual commodity trading was done.

The complicated fraud bilked about 1,500 investors of $80 million from 1979 to 1984 and led to seven years of court battles against J. David’s principals.

J. David (Jerry) Dominelli, the firm’s founder, pleaded guilty in 1985 to fraud and tax evasion in connection with the scheme. He is serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison.

Hunter, who carried on a love affair with Dominelli, endured an eight-month trial in 1989, the longest-running criminal case in the history of the San Diego federal court.