INSIDE INGLEWOOD - The July 15 trial for State Senator Rod Wright (D-Inglewood) regarding voter fraud and perjury has again been pushed back, this time to Nov. 4.
The July trial had originally been scheduled for April. It was recently confirmed as being replaced on the docket for early November.
The pre-trial will take place on October 1.
According to LA County DA spokesperson Jane Robinson, Wright “had scheduling conflicts with legislation he is working on” as the reason for the delay.
Wright was charged with voter fraud and perjury for allegedly lying about his Inglewood residence when he ran for election.
He was accused of living in Baldwin Hills, an unincorporated area immediately adjacent to Ladera Heights. Both areas have a high population of residents who work in Inglewood.
LA Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy is slated to remain the presiding judge.
According to an April 23 story by Nick Green in the Daily Breeze, “Kennedy has presided over several high-profile public corruption trials in recent months, including those of city of Bell officials accused of misusing city funds."
Wright’s attorney is the Beverly Hills-based legal firm owned by Winston Kevin McKesson.
McKesson is not unfamiliar with corruption in Southern California.
According to a July 2002 story by Charles Rappleye in the LA Weekly, McKesson defended LAPD Rampart cocaine/CRASH snitch, Rafael Perez.
In the article it was noted that “the attorney who represented Perez, [Winston Kevin] McKesson sat through all of the meetings with investigators, and conferred extensively with the disgraced officer during his months in county jail.”
The Rampart fiasco involved murder, rape, bank robberies, organized theft, framing of suspects, drug-running, conspiratorial perjury and a cover-up among LAPD officers. The eventual result was the official disbanding of Rampart Division’s CRASH unit.
Neither Wright nor McKesson returned phone calls seeking comment.
(Randall Fleming is a veteran journalist and magazine publisher. He has worked at and for the New York Post, the Brooklyn Spectator and the Los Feliz Ledger. He is currently editor-in-chief at the Morningside Park Chronicle, a monthly newspaper based in Inglewood, CA and on-line at www.MorningsideParkChronicle.com)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 52
Pub: June 28, 2013
