INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Former Vero Beach attorney Ira Hatch is expected to find out if his criminal case will go to trial when he appears before a judge Tuesday.
Hatch is due in Circuit Court Judge Robert Hawley’s courtroom at 3 p.m. where the State Attorney’s Office will argue that it has the evidence needed to go to trial. Hatch’s defense will be asking to have the case dismissed.
The defense team has argued in court that the State Attorney’s Office has not provided enough information as to which transactions Hatch allegedly made resulting in the money laundering and grand theft charges he faces.
Hatch has been sitting in the Indian River County jail since January 2008 on more than $3 million bond. He faces 57 felony charges that include 29 counts of third degree grand theft, 12 counts of second degree grand theft, 11 counts of grand theft, three counts of money laundering between $20,000 and $200,000, and one count each of operating as a money transmitter and felony racketeering, according to his arrest report.
In all, Hatch is accused of misusing $4.5 million of his clients’ money they had entrusted to his company, Coastal Escrow, which is no longer in operation.
