Small Town News

Attorney testifies about sweetheart deal

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Only two of the five allegations listed in the petition to remove Big Horn County Attorney Georgia Antley Hunt Hunt from office are not part of the federal lawsuit of Abromats vs. Hunt, Matthew Miller, et al. The issues -- conflict of interest and closing of the county attorney office -- were addressed during testimony of the seven-hour hearing last Wednesday before the Big Horn County commissioners

Petitioner Letitia Abromats submitted two documents regarding the allegation of closing the county attorney's office, an e-mail from Georgia Antley Hunt to colleagues and family on Dec. 22, 2007, stating that someone had complained about the office being closed the previous day and that Commissioner Keith Grant had e-mailed her a statutory reminder.

The second exhibit was an article from the Basin Republican Rustler dated Oct. 15, 2009, where the closing of the office in September 2009 was discussed at a commissioner meeting. In the article, Commissioner Jerry Ewen states that all offices are to be open during business hours.

During the hearing Wednesday, Hunt testified that the first closing was for a few hours just before Christmas. She said she was leaving early and did not feel it was right to ask her employees to work. Dec. 21 was a Friday and the courthouse was closed Dec. 24-25 (Monday and Tuesday).

In 2009, she and her deputy county attorneys attended the Wyoming Association of County Officials. She said her administrative assistant had a doctor's appointment that could not be rescheduled and rather than hire someone to answer the phones for one day she closed the office. She said she is unaware of any emergencies or issues that were not addressed when the office was closed.

Conflict of interest

Regarding the conflict of interest, also termed a "sweetheart deal" in the petition. Abromats did not call any witnesses, but filed a few exhibits including the federal case pleading showing that Bill Simpson is the attorney of record for Hunt, and a newspaper article regarding the embezzlement case of Quinton Vavra.

Hunt's attorney Larry Jones called three

witnesses to address the allegation, first calling Michelle Burns regarding an embezzlement case while she was county attorney from 2003-2006. Burns testified that officials from the town of Burlington did not want the defendant to go to jail and she agreed to a 7-13-301 or deferred prosecution where Mary Howard would not have a felony conviction on her record if she abided by terms of her probation and made full restitution.

Hunt also testified regarding her relationship with Simpson as a defense attorney and as her attorney in civil action. Regarding the Vavra case, she said Vavra was initially charged with two felonies - forgery and larceny by bailee. Vavra pled guilty to the forgery count, paid restitution of $29,000 to Big Horn Rural Electric, was sentenced to three to five years in prison, which was suspended and placed on five years probation. She said Simpson requested a deferred prosecution sentence but Hunt denied it because she did not think it was appropriate despite the fact Vavra had a clean criminal record.

Simpson testified

that he believed Cran-fill knew that Simpson was representing Hunt on the lawsuits, as well as representing Vavra since Cranfill was the judge in the Vavra case and is the judge on the lawsuit Abromats filed against Hunt in District Court alleging "interference with contractual relations."

Simpson said he has worked with five Big Horn County attorneys over his years as a defense attorney and each one has agreed to deferred prosecutions. He said embezzlement cases are good situations for deferred prosecution because they are "crimes against an entity not a person."

"If this was a sweetheart deal (for Vavra) it was not much of one based on other deals I've made," Simpson said. He said he, Hunt and Judge Cranfill were aware that Big Horn REA officials wanted Vavra to serve prison time and plea agreements have been against the wishes of victims in the cases.

Under cross examination, he told Abromats he did not recall the judge being upset by the plea agreement, adding that the judge has sole discretion to accept or reject any agreement.



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© 2011 Basin Republican Rustler Basin, Wyoming. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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