Former California State Senator Rod Wright, once one of the most powerful lawmakers in the Golden State and the fallen champion of online poker, served virtually no jail time for being convicted of perjury and fraud.
Wright, once the chairman of one of the most influential Senate committees, was processed and released within minutes, not, as some critics might suppose, because of his former high status, but because of federal requirements for preventing overcrowding in California’s prisons.
Wright was convicted earlier this year of eight felonies, all of them non-violent. Because he had no prior criminal record, he was quickly released.
Jessica Levinson, a professor of political law at Loyola Law School, doesn’t buy that Wright’s status played no role in his non-prison term. “A lot of people will get from that: ‘I always knew Rod Wright was never really going to serve, because he is a VIP and would get special treatment,” she told the Sacramento Bee.
Wright, 62, served in the California legislature for 12 years. He was convicted because he committed fraud when he claimed that his Inglewood home was his legal residence when he actually lived outside of his district, prosecutors claimed.
