Margaret Hunter, the wife of longtime East County Congressman Duncan D. Hunter who was co-indicted with her husband last summer, has agreed to change her plea of not guilty and is scheduled to appear in federal court Thursday morning.

The announcement was posted on the U.S. District Court docket late Wednesday morning without any supplemental documentation.

“Notice of hearing as to defendant Margaret E. Hunter,” the docket entry states. “Change of Plea hearing set for 6/13/2019.”

Both Hunter and his wife were indicted in August on 60 criminal counts related to what prosecutors allege was a years-long misuse of campaign donations to the congressman’s re-election fund. Each of the defendants pleaded not guilty to all charges last year.


Attorneys for Margaret Hunter did not return calls seeking comment about the change-of-plea hearing Thursday.

Hunter’s congressional office did not reply to a request for comment. Gregory Vega, the former U.S. attorney who is defending Rep. Hunter, said the Margaret Hunter development has no immediate bearing on his client’s case.

“We are aware of Mrs. Hunter scheduling a hearing to change her plea,” Vega said Wednesday. “At this time, that does not change anything regarding Congressman Hunter. There are still significant motions that need to be litigated, specifically the speech or debate clause of the U.S. Constitution.”

Vega declined to comment on whether the change of plea might reflect a decision by Margaret Hunter to cooperate with prosecutors and testify against her husband.


Experts say a change-of-plea hearing almost certainly means Margaret Hunter is now working with prosecutors.

“What it normally means is that she and her lawyer have cut a deal to cooperate with the government,” former federal prosecutor Jerry Coughlan said. “In return for that, the government will agree to only the charges she pleads guilty to and typically bring to the judge’s attention what she’s done and make a recommendation for leniency.

“It all depends on what she negotiated,” he said. “Those are the general parameters, but every case is different.”

While the couple appeared jointly at initial court appearances immediately following the August indictment, they arrived separately to more recent proceedings, sat in separate parts of the courtroom and avoided speaking or even eye contact.


The indictment, which followed two-plus years of reporting by The San Diego Union-Tribune, accused Hunter and his wife of using at least $250,000 in campaign donations for personal expenses, including groceries, a garage door, a trip to Italy, oral surgery and private school tuition and lunches.

The Alpine congressman, 42, also billed his campaign $600 to fly his family’s pet rabbit across the country, records show.

Use of campaign funds for personal benefit is illegal, to guard against undue influence by campaign contributors. In Hunter’s case, many of his defense contractor and maritime donors had an interest in actions by the committees on which Hunter served.

Prior to the indictment, Hunter generally portrayed the questionable spending as good-faith mistakes. For instance, he claimed $1,300 of video game expenses were charged to his congressional campaign in part because his personal and congressional cards were both blue.


Later, he made a series of repayments to the campaign totaling $60,000 and said that should put an end to the matter. He sold his home to help make the payments and moved in with his father and predecessor in Congress, Duncan L. Hunter.

According to prosecutors, Hunter and his wife systematically used political donations to pay routine bills and to support their lifestyle, including luxury hotel stays, golf outings, meals at expensive restaurants and more.

“Throughout the relevant period, the Hunters spent substantially more than they earned,” the indictment said. “They overdrew their bank account more than 1,100 times in a seven-year period, resulting in approximately $37,761 in ‘overdraft’ and ‘insufficient funds’ bank fees.”

Hunter and his wife married in 1998 and have three children. They met when Margaret volunteered in the campaign office of Hunter’s father, who served 14 terms in Congress before his son won the seat.


“It was one of those love-at-first-sight things,” Margaret told the Union-Tribune in a long-ago profile. “I knew that day I wanted to marry him. I broke it to him two weeks later.”

The 47-page indictment last summer laid out a sweeping pattern of alleged illegal campaign spending, both by the congressman and his wife.

Among other expenses, Margaret Hunter was accused of using campaign funds to purchase personal makeup from Bloomingdale’s, tickets to SeaWorld and more than $5,000 of fast food. Twice she used campaign funds to pay for air travel to Warsaw, Poland, for her mother, the indictment said.

Prosecutors also say much of the illegal spending was made by Duncan Hunter, including money he spent while in the company of people who were not his wife.


Five unnamed people who benefited from the illegal spending -- Individuals 14 through 18 -- all “lived in the Washington D.C. area and had personal relationships with Duncan Hunter,” the indictment states.

In one case, Hunter used $351 in campaign money to pay for a rental car to drive with Individual 14 from Reno, Nev., to Lake Tahoe. Three days later, the congressman paid a $1,008 tab at the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort, Spa and Casino with a campaign credit card, prosecutors said.

That same day, the Hunter family bank account had a negative balance and incurred six separate overdraft charges, the indictment said. The congressman’s campaign spending on Individual 14 lasted for more than a year, including “driving his car on a 468-mile trip to Virginia Beach” and “a personal stay at the Liaison Capitol Hill” in 2011, it added.

In 2016, Rep. Hunter used campaign funds to pay a $32 Uber fare from Individual 18’s home to his congressional office at 7:40 a.m. on a Thursday, prosecutors said.


Margaret Hunter, 44, who until 2017 was paid $3,000 a month to serve as campaign manager, is due to appear at 10 a.m. Thursday before Judge Thomas J. Whelan.

In the initial days following the indictment, Rep. Hunter was criticized for blaming his wife for the alleged misspending, noting that she was in charge of the finances.

“She was also the campaign manager, so whatever she did, that’ll be looked at too,” Rep. Hunter told Fox News last year. “But I didn’t do it. I didn’t spend any money illegally.”

He also called media reports about his questionable spending “fake news” and declared that he was a target of a “Deep State” conspiracy and overzealous federal prosecutors dubious of his early support for the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump.


Even though he faced criminal charges filed in August, Hunter was re-elected in November. Republican Party leaders stripped him of his committee seats, limiting his authority and duties within the U.S. House of Representatives.

Rep. Hunter is not required to attend Thursday’s hearing. He signed a court notice Tuesday indicating that he would appear at his next scheduled proceeding on July 1. The trial has been scheduled in September.