Conviction Overturned for Okla. Farmers Cooperative Manager

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned the conviction and prison sentence of the former manager of a defunct Oklahoma farmers cooperative.

Gregory Vincent Hunt has been free pending appeal and never served any of his 5 1/4-year prison sentence in the $2 million forgery and money laundering case. He never faced state charges.

A three-judge appeals court panel concluded that federal prosecutors in Oklahoma City charged Hunt, of Fairview, with the wrong crime, The Oklahoman reported from Denver, where the court is based.

Hunt was convicted in 2004 of 63 counts of securities forgery and 41 counts of money laundering based on a series of checks he wrote from 1997 to 1999, transferring more than $2 million from the cooperative to his own accounts.

“We … acknowledge our distaste for undoing the conviction of a defendant … whose actions undoubtedly violated numerous fraud and embezzlement statutes and whose conduct included the brazen fabrication of evidence and attempted bribery of a witness,” the judges wrote.

“Yet federal prosecutors elected to charge Mr. Hunt with uttering ‘forged securities,”’ the judges wrote in the 31-page decision.

“Whatever else he has done, Mr. Hunt did not commit forgery,” the judges wrote. They also said the money laundering convictions cannot stand because they depended on the forgery convictions.

“It is our unhappy duty, however, to reverse the conviction of any defendant charged under the wrong statute,” they wrote.

Attorney Doug Jackson of Enid, who represented Custer City Farmers Co-Op in a civil case against Hunt because of the case, reacted by saying “Basically, he’s getting off on a technicality, to me.”

“I didn’t know state charges were dropped, and he’s a lucky person,” Jackson said. “Someone made a mistake somewhere.”

Everett Heibert, a former board member of the Orienta Cooperative Association in north-central Oklahoma where Hunt was manager, said allowing Hunt to walk is “certainly a mistake.”

Hunt’s attorney, Robert Wyatt IV of Oklahoma City, said Hunt can not be put on trial again because the statute of limitations has expired in state court and because the federal appeals court on Aug. 9 ordered Hunt to be acquitted of the federal charges.

Information from: The Oklahoman, www.newsok.com.