San Diego

Nancy Hoover Hunter, facing 197 federal tax-evasion and fraud charges, spent her first full day under cross-examination Friday discussing her checking accounts and financial records through 1983, the year before the La Jolla investment firm J. David & Co. collapsed.

Federal prosecutors presented evidence that although most of the money Hunter spent through 1982 was from her personal bank account, in 1983 she began using J. David accounts to make personal investments and to give money to her immediate family.

Hunter faces the charges in connection with her role as a top executive at J. David, which collapsed when investors forced it into bankruptcy court in February, 1984. About 1,500 investors lost about $80 million in the J. David affair, a giant fraud in which prosecutors allege Hunter played an active role.

Defense attorneys maintain that Hunter was blinded by her love for J. David’s founder, J. David (Jerry) Dominelli, who became her lover, and was unaware of his illegal activities. Dominelli is serving a 20-year federal prison term in connection with the investment firm’s Ponzi scheme.

Hunter has frequently said since the trial began in March that she thought Dominelli was a “genius” and never doubted what he told her. She said Friday that she never had reason to change that opinion, even though she was a securities broker herself and posted many of Dominelli’s accounts on a daily basis, because she didn’t scrutinize monthly or annual statements.

“I never looked at monthly statements,” Hunter said. “I just put them in the file.”