California state Senator Wright to resign following fraud conviction

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California state Senator Roderick Wright plans to resign from office later this month following a perjury and voter fraud conviction that saw him sentenced to 90 days in jail, he said in a letter sent on Monday. “Effective Sept. 22, 2014, I hereby resign from the California State Senate,” the Los Angeles-area Democrat wrote in a letter to the secretary of the legislative body three days after his sentence was handed down. Wright was convicted in January of lying about whether he lived in the district he sought to represent, the first in a string of criminal proceedings against three state senators this year that effectively cost Democrats a cherished two-thirds majority in the California Senate. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge sentenced Wright on Friday to 90 days in jail and said he was no longer eligible to hold office in California. California state Senate Democratic leader Darrell Steinberg called on Friday for Wright to resign, and said he was free to appeal his case as a private citizen. Steinberg spokesman Rhys Williams said on Monday that Steinberg had accepted Wright's pending resignation. (Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Eric Walsh)