Former North Dakota Workers’ Comp Director Convicted

In late December, North Dakota’s former workers’ compensation director was convicted on the more serious of two felony charges that he misspent public funds. It carries a possible 10-year prison term.

Sandy Blunt’s attorney, Michael Hoffman, said his client will appeal. He argued the presiding judge in the case should have dismissed the charge during Blunt’s five-day trial.

Blunt, 44, who was chief executive officer of Workforce Safety and Insurance for almost four years, stared impassively at South Central District Judge Bruce Romanick as he watched the judge read the verdict. Blunt declined comment.

Romanick ordered a pre-sentence investigation for Blunt, who remains free on his promise to show up for future court appearances. His sentencing has not been scheduled.

Blunt had faced two felony charges of misapplication of entrusted property. Jurors found him guilty of the more serious charge, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Jurors concluded Blunt was responsible for paying more than $10,000 in illegal expenses. Prosecutors claimed Blunt improperly endorsed $26,401 in payments, including extra moving costs and sick leave for a healthy WSI administrator, gift cards for employees, and refreshments and trinkets for regular meetings of WSI workers.

Blunt continued the spending even after other state officials and his own employees warned him the expenses were questionable, trial testimony indicated.

Blunt was acquitted of a separate felony charge that he paid $7,509 in illegal bonuses to his secretary, two agency executives and its top attorney. The charge carried a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Blunt, who did not testify during his trial, described the payments as retroactive salary increases. During a meeting with lawyers in his chambers, Romanick ruled that a $15,279 safety training grant paid to the North Dakota Firefighter’s Association was not a crime, Hoffman and Feland said. Jurors were told not to consider it during deliberations.

The criminal case against Blunt grew from an October 2006 state audit of Workforce Safety and Insurance, which questioned the agency’s spending and management practices.

He was charged in April 2007 with two felony counts of misspending public funds, and a third charge of conspiring to use confidential state driver’s license photos as part of an investigation.

Prosecutors later dropped the conspiracy charge, and South Central District Judge Robert Wefald threw out the other two, ruling that prosecutors had not shown Blunt benefited personally from the disputed expenses.

The North Dakota Supreme Court reinstated the two charges last June, ruling unanimously that prosecutors did not have to show Blunt was enriching himself.

Blunt, a former Ohio workers’ compensation executive, was hired as CEO of Workforce Safety and Insurance in April 2004. He was dismissed by the agency’s board of directors in 2007, eight months after the criminal charges were lodged.