The cause of online poker in California lost its most powerful lawmaker last week when State Senator Roderick Wright was found guilty by a Los Angeles jury on eight felony counts of not living in the district he represents, which includes the town of Inglewood where he claims he lives.
His attorney has promised to appeal the conviction, calling the law Wright was convicted under “murky” and claiming that the prosecution’s investigation was “sloppy.”
The felony accounts that brought the powerful Democrat down also included perjury and fraudulent voting. Wright pleaded not guilty but some of his own neighbors in the home in Baldwin Hills that he claimed he only used as an office testified that he spent almost every night there.
Wright has been a tireless advocate of online gaming, and had previously sponsored two bills that would have legalized online poker but no other online gaming. For the past three years he has pushed online gaming.
He chairs the powerful Senate Governmental Organization committee, responsible for all gaming laws.
The 61-year-old Wright is the first state legislator in the Golden State to be convicted of a felony in two decades. He faces up to eight years in prison and being banned for life from holding elective office. Ironically, the law is unclear whether he automatically loses his Senate seat or must be expelled first. The last time a California senator was expelled was 1905. Sentencing has been set for the middle of March.
The leader of the Senate, fellow Democrat Darrell Steinberg said that his colleagues hold the senator “in high regard,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
