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Ex-commissioner may face new gun charges

Former Douglas official, family were due to face trial

By Jefferson Robbins, The Wenatchee World
Published: December 5, 2016, 11:03pm

SPOKANE — Federal charges of illegal firearms sales against former Douglas County Commissioner Mary Hunt, her husband and two adult sons were dismissed last month at the request of prosecutors.

But prosecutors told U.S. District Court Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson they plan to file new charges, and the judge turned down a request from the Hunt family to dismiss the matter permanently. Until Peterson closed the case Nov. 23, all four were due to go on trial next week in the Spokane-based Eastern District of Washington.

Hunt, 71, her husband Terry Hunt, 72, and sons Russell Hunt, 52, and Derek Hunt, 46, were indicted last June on charges of conspiracy to deal in firearms without a federal license. The indictment alleges unlicensed sales of six handguns between June 2011 and December 2015.

Searches of the Hunts’ property found evidence including “detailed sales records of firearms without a Federal Firearms License,” according to court filings by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. An FFL has been required for commercial gun sales in the United States since 1968. Federal agents seized 111 firearms from the Hunts while investigating the case in late 2015.

Plea offers rejected

The Hunts did not accept plea offers made by federal prosecutors back in September, according to court affidavits. As recently as mid-November, Assistant U.S. Attorney Earl Hicks indicated he would file a second indictment adding new charges. Assistant U.S. Attorney Aine Ahmed, the former chief criminal prosecutor for the Eastern District who brought the original indictment, withdrew from the case in October.

In filings, the Hunts’ attorney, Roger J. Peven of Spokane, accused the government of seeking a “tactical advantage” and “harassing the defendant” with its dismissal request. He argued their due-process rights justified dismissing the charges “with prejudice” so they could not be charged a second time.

“Ms. Hunt retained counsel at personal expense, has been under orders of the Court for six months, and has had to track witnesses down from over five years ago,” Peven wrote in a court memo. “Now the Government seeks to expand its reach and add additional counts after having Ms. Hunt prepare for trial on the instant indictment for six months and seeks to do that less than 30 days from the currently scheduled trial date.”

In his own memo, Hicks replied that with new charges pending, the Hunts were better served by dismissal — so they did not have to file legal motions related to the original charge that would only be rendered moot.

“All of this was based on the desire to potentially prevent the defendants from having to pay attorneys when it was probably unnecessary,” Hicks wrote.

Neither the U.S. Attorney’s Office nor Peven responded to phone messages Monday seeking comment.

Mary Hunt was a Douglas County commissioner from 1998 to 2010. All four defendants, members of a longtime Douglas County wheat-farming family, have remained free since their indictment.

A conviction for firearms-sale conspiracy carries a possible prison term of up to five years and $250,000 fine, plus a maximum three years of probation.

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