CIETC outrage not near end
Lawyers in the CIETC civil lawsuit agreed Thursday on an August 2010 trial date, which sets the stage for at least two more years of legal battles over roughly $1.5 million in taxpayer money allegedly misspent by former job-training executive Ramona Cunningham and others.
"There are a lot of different issues, and there are a lot of people in the case that weren't in the case before," said Leon Spies, attorney for former Iowa Workforce Development executive Jane Barto, one of those accused in the case. "I think the blister continues to fester."
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller's office sued seven former officials of the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium in March to recover at least $1.3 million linked to various CIETC officials. The lawsuit - it also names a former CIETC consultant and former auditing firm Faller & Kinchloe -was filed before April's fraud and conspiracy trial in Davenport.
Jurors in the criminal case found former CIETC accountant Karen Tesdell guilty of 29 charges connected to what prosecutors said was a three-year conspiracy to misspend public money on CIETC salaries.
Barto, a co-defendant, was found not guilty of conspiracy but was convicted of obstructing a CIETC investigation.
Former board member Dan Albritton also was acquitted of conspiracy.
Cunningham, Tesdell, Barto and Albritton all are named in the civil lawsuit, along with former CIETC board chairman Archie Brooks, former executive John Bargman and Bargman's wife, former CIETC consultant Deb Dessert.
Lawyers say Barto and Albritton, despite their acquittals in the criminal case, still face civil liability in a manner similar to legal proceedings against former football star O.J. Simpson. Simpson, acquitted of murder in 1995, later was socked with a $38 million Iowa wrongful death judgment.