ATTLEBORO - An Attleboro District Court judge has agreed to send the cases against former North Attleboro electric officials accused of misappropriating $4 million in bond funds for trial to another court.

Judge Robert E. Baylor ruled that former General Manager David Sweetland and former Commissioners Richard Shaw, Bruce J. Bliss, and Bruce Gebhardt should not be tried in Attleboro District Court.

Lawyers for the men argued last week that pretrial publicity the case has garnered would complicate efforts to pick an unbiased jury and make it unlikely they could receive a fair trial.

Baylor recommended the case be tried in Fall River District Court, but the location is pending approval from Judge Paul Dawley, the region's administrative justice. A pretrial hearing is scheduled June 28.

The ruling also affects Patricia Vandette, the former business development officer at the electric company. She is charged in a separate case with Sweetland for allegedly swapping taxpayer-funded airline tickets to a business conference for tickets to the Bahamas for a personal vacation with Sweetland in April 2005.

The airline ticket case will also be transferred.

The trip came one month after Sweetland resigned from the utility and one month after Vandette, who resigned in November 2004, admitted to charges she secretly taped employees at the utility. She paid a $200 fine and that case is now dismissed.

Last week, Taunton defense lawyer Francis O'Boy, who represents the three former electric commissioners and Vandette, argued jury selection would be difficult in Attleboro because many North Attleboro electric ratepayers would be expected to be in the jury pool.

The defendants have pleaded innocent and lawyers for the men say they adamantly deny any wrongdoing.

The former commissioners and Sweetland are not accused of personally receiving any money in the bond fund case.

But the town estimates it lost $10 million when the electric department allegedly used the bond funds for expenditures, including a failed Internet business, that were not approved by town meeting.

O'Boy said there are conflicting opinions on whether the expenditures were proper in the financially complex case.

The former commissioners and Sweetland were charged last year in the midst of a hotly contested race between incumbent Bristol County District Attorney Paul Walsh Jr. and Sam Sutter, a former assistant district attorney. Sutter won the election.

Before that, other state law enforcement agencies, including Walsh's office and the attorney general's office, took no action to prosecute the case. DAVID LINTON can be reached at 508-236-0338 or at dlinton@thesunchronicle.com.