N.D. Surpreme Court Revives Workers’ Comp Charges Against Former Director

North Dakota’s Supreme Court revived two felony charges on June 30 against a former state workers’ compensation director, saying prosecutors may put him on trial for allegedly misspending more than $18,000 in agency funds.

Sandy Blunt was forced out as Workforce Safety and Insurance’s director last December. He had been the agency’s top executive since April 2004, when he went to the state agency from the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation.

Blunt is accused of illegally spending $7,200 on bonuses for Jodi Bjornson, the top lawyer at Workforce Safety and Insurance; John Halvorson, the agency’s chief of employer services; and Mark Armstrong, its communications director.

He also is charged with making $11,384 in unauthorized expenditures over a number of months for food, gifts, trinkets and other items for employee meetings and functions, and on meals for state legislators.

The money paid for grill rentals, trolley rides to a meeting at Fort Lincoln State Park, four cases of peppermint patties, Fourth of July holiday items, and candy and balloons for “Bring Your Kids to Work Day,” among other items.

Prosecutors say the misspending on employee gifts is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Awarding the bonuses, they say, is a lesser felony, punishable by five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Blunt did not respond to e-mail messages seeking comment. His lawyer, Mike Hoffman, said only that he may ask the Supreme Court to rehear arguments in the case. Such requests are almost never granted.

Mark Armstrong, a Workforce Safety and Insurance spokesman, said the agency had no comment on the ruling.

Richard Riha, the Burleigh County state’s attorney, said he was unsure when a trial would be scheduled. Riha said he was pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision, which adopted arguments that prosecutors used to attempt to reinstate the charges.

“They’re just giving us a chance to run it by a jury,” Riha said.

South Central District Judge Robert Wefald dismissed the charges last August, saying prosecutors had not shown Blunt benefited from the alleged misspending. The Supreme Court’s ruling, written by Justice Dale Sandstrom, said prosecutors did not have to show Blunt had engaged in self-dealing.

“A public officer entrusted with public funds has no right to give them away,” he wrote.

In Ohio, a man Blunt formerly supervised, Terrence Gasper, pleaded guilty last year charges accusing him of accepting bribes in exchange for doling out millions of dollars in workers’ compensation investment business and is serving a prison sentence of five years and four months. The plea was part of a scandal shook former Gov. Bob Taft’s administration and was blamed in part for Republicans’ slide from statewide office in 2006. Blunt has denied any wrongdoing in the Ohio case.