Former North Dakota’s Workers’ Comp Director Pleads Not Guilty

Former North Dakota workers compensation director Sandy Blunt pleaded not guilty to two felony charges of misspending agency funds, almost two months after the state Supreme Court ruled Blunt should go on trial.

South Central District Judge Bruce Romanick tentatively scheduled jury selection to begin Thursday, Dec. 11. Romanick reserved the following week for Blunt’s trial.

Cynthia Feland, an assistant Burleigh County state’s attorney, said the prosecution alone may call 28 witnesses to make its case.

Feland’s witness list includes a number of present and former Workforce Safety and Insurance executives, including attorneys Jodi Bjornson, Tim Wahlin and Rob Forward, spokesman Mark Armstrong, and John Halvorson, WSI’s chief of employer services and a former interim agency director.

Blunt is accused of giving $7,200 in illegal bonuses to three Workforce Safety and Insurance executives, and misspending $11,384 on meals and trips for North Dakota state legislators, as well as restaurant meal cards, gifts and trinkets for agency employees.

Both charges are known legally as “misapplication of entrusted property.” The allegation that Blunt misspent $11,384 is a more severe felony, punishable by 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The second count, which has a lighter sentence because there is less money involved, carries a maximum punishment of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Accompanied by his lawyer, Michael Hoffman, of Bismarck, Blunt made his pleas during a 14-minute hearing late Monday afternoon in the Burleigh County courthouse.

He said only, “Not guilty, your honor,” in response to Romanick’s invitation to enter pleas on each of the two felony charges. Blunt declined comment afterward.

Romanick asked lawyers in the case to submit proposed questionnaires for prospective jurors within 10 days. He said a pretrial conference could be held in early November.

“Let’s not go overboard (on jury questions). Let’s stick to the meat of their opinion of the case, what they know about the case,” Romanick told the lawyers. “(Jurors) don’t like filling them out … The more focused we can make them, the more willing they are to fill them out and be honest with us beforehand.”

Feland, in an interview, said questionnaires could be used to screen prospective jurors who had strong biases in the case without requiring them to come to the courthouse to be questioned.

Prosecutors filed the felony charges against Blunt in April 2007, after a state auditor’s report questioned his spending practices at Workforce Safety and Insurance. Gordy Smith, who supervised the audit, is listed as a potential prosecution witness.

South Central District Judge Robert Wefald dismissed the charges in August 2007, ruling prosecutors had not shown Blunt benefited personally from the questioned expenditures.

The North Dakota Supreme Court reinstated the charges last June, saying prosecutors did not have to prove Blunt was trying to help himself