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Wright Thurs.: Trainwreck
posted at 2008-04-04 00:34 | Last modified 2008-04-04 13:40
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Former State Rep. Thomas Wright took the stand today in his own defense at his criminal fraud trial. It may have been a fair risk to take: Wright can be charming, engaging, and very persuasive.
That’s how it started out, anyway. Wright talked glowingly and at length about his years of accomplishments for the poor people of his district.
He admitted he’d solicited and pocketed charitable donations to his Foundation, but only as reimbursement for the years of work and thousands of dollars he’d poured into it to get it going.
And he said he’d been targeted by political enemies in his own party who hired oppo researcher Joe Sinsheimer to bring him down in retribution for supporting a Republican challenger in the 2006 New Hanover Senate race. (More on that here.)
But then it was Wake DA Colon Willoughby’s turn to cross-examine Wright. Willoughby got Wright mad and kept him mad for hours. So that part didn’t go well at all, really. First it got weird, then ludicrous, then absurd.
Listen in
If I told you what all was said today, you probably wouldn’t believe me. Seriously. So here’s some of the choicer tidbits of today’s testimony.
Chapter 1: The Magic Number
In which Wright says he thought his federal non-profit tax number was official because it came from a fax machine that showed “hours, minutes….and seconds!”
Chapter 2: The Purloined Letter
In which Wright suggests someone could have gone behind his back to show his banker the false grant letter from Torlen Wade.
Chapter 3: You Don’t Know Jack
In which Wright tells DA Colon Willoughby that Willoughby doesn’t know much about how the legislature works. (Because, really, when isn’t browbeating the DA a good idea?)
Chapter 4: With Friends Like These…
In which Wright says the Loftons (his friends who lost 150K) are the real masterminds of this scheme. He’s just the victim.
Chapter 5: It’s (Not) My Party
In which Wright explains why his fellow Democrats are out to get him…and so are the people who don’t like African American history. And the folks who don’t like former Speaker Jim Black.
Chapter 6: Sorry…Kind of
In which Wright says he regrets causing anyone pain, but he doesn’t really think anyone got hurt here, because the Loftons’ 150K second mortgage was “just paper.”
Bad to worse
As Wright made statements on the stand, Willoughby pulled out one after another piece of evidence to challenge or refute them.
One example: Wright said he took the charity checks as reimbursement for thousands he spent starting the Foundation, but couldn’t prove any expense except one – a $4900 interest payment on the Foundation’s loan. Willoughby promptly produced evidence that Wright had used campaign money to pay the interest (and failed to report it, to boot).
Wright said his cancelled checks and credit card statements would prove his other expenditures, but he couldn’t produce them because he hadn’t yet received them. He says that’s ultimately Willoughby’s fault: he delayed requesting them because the state told him it already had all his checks, but the checks he remembers writing weren’t among them, and “the burden of proof is on you.”
I’m certainly no jury expert, but I’d guess from their expressions they weren’t buying it. By the end of the day, Wright was grinning and laughing at Willoughby from the stand, but they weren’t laughing with him. He even tried to joke about his wife’s (very sympathetic) testimony, but it fell completely flat.
Closing arguments start tomorrow morning. Both sides say they’ll offer a 45-or-so minute presentation. After that, it goes to the jury – most likely before lunch.
If jurors find Wright guilty on all four counts, he could face penalties ranging from probation to around 10 years in prison. If he’s found guilty of even one felony charge, he’ll have to drop his re-election campaign this year...(correction) unless he appeals the verdict.
