According to the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era, federal prosecutor Nancy E. Potts is asking a federal judge to remove attorney Donald R. Jones Jr., counsel for defendant Harold W. Young in the Equipment Finance Inc. fraud case, due to conflict of interest.

The article notes that Potts filed court documents claiming that Jones also had been representing EFI defendant John S. Tomberlin while the case was under investigation. After the indictment in November 2010, Tomberlin hired another attorney and is scheduled to plead guilty in August.

Potts, who the article notes is likely to call Tomberlin as a witness in Young’s October trial, claims that Jones now has a conflict of interest.

As previously reported on monitordaily, the trial for defendants Misty L. Kroesen and her husband Curtis A. Kroesen, former EFI employees, and Young is scheduled for October 25, 2011.

Sentencing of co-defendants Joseph M. Braas, Michael J. Schlager, Mary C. Stankiewicz is scheduled for November 2011. Tomberlin is set to plead guilty on August 15.

Braas, Schlager, Stankiewicz, the Kroesens, all from Lancaster County, and Spann, Tomberlin and Young, all from Alabama, were indicted with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and mail fraud, all arising out a massive, sophisticated loan fraud scheme that resulted in a loss of $53 million.

It is alleged in the indictment that as far back as 2001, before EFI was acquired by Sterling, the defendants were engaging in a systematic fraud at EFI. They are charged with colluding in a pervasive scheme to steal money by looting the accounts of EFI and falsifying EFI’s books, from 2001 through 2007.

To read the complete Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era article click here.

Previously on monitordaily: EFI Loan Fraud Defendant Spann Pleads Guilty, published July 27, 2011