Former Adelanto Mayor Pro Tem Jermaine Wright sentenced to 5-years in federal prison

Former Adelanto Mayor Pro Tem Jermaine Wright was sentenced to five years in federal prison after being found guilty of accepting a bribe for his political influence and hiring a man to burn down his Fat Boyz Grill.

The 46-year-old Wright of Riverside was sentenced on Monday for accepting a $10,000 cash bribe and the arson hire so he could fraudulently collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance proceeds.

U.S. District Judge Jesus G. Bernal passed down Wright’s sentence after the conclusion of a six-day trial, according to the Department of Justice.

A federal jury on June 22 found Wright — Adelanto’s mayor pro tem in 2017 — guilty of one count of bribery of programs receiving federal funds and one count of attempted arson of a building affecting interstate commerce, the Daily Press reported.

The investigation

In early 2017, federal investigators began investigating possible corruption in Adelanto.

During the investigation, law enforcement used an informant who introduced Wright to two undercover FBI agents and recorded conversations in which Wright discussed two plots.

In the first scheme, Wright accepted a $10,000 bribe from an undercover FBI agent who told Wright he wanted his assistance in securing votes to expand the marijuana business zone and for protection from code enforcement related to a supposed marijuana transportation business.

“Unfortunately, [Wright’s] decision to accept a $10,000 bribe payment was not a one-off event,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “The recordings, in this case, show that he spoke to the undercover agent…over a period of months."

"Wright initially quoted a price of $20,000 for his vote on a City Council matter. Later, he suggested $15,000 for ‘pushing’ permits. Finally, he accepted a $10,000 payment and said he expected a stack,’ or $2,000, each time he would interfere with code enforcement going forward.”

Arson scheme

In the second scheme, in August 2017, Wright sought the informant’s assistance in finding someone to burn down his Fat Boyz Grill restaurant in Adelanto.

In late September, Wright asked the informant to pass his cell phone number to the “electrician” – so named because Wright wanted the cause of the fire to appear to be an electrical problem.

Wright met the “electrician” – the second undercover FBI agent – on October 3, 2017, and said he wanted the fire the following Saturday when the sprinkler system would be turned off.

After Wright assured the undercover agent that his insurance policy covered everything, the “electrician” agreed to do the job for $1,500.

At a meeting three days later, Wright paid the $1,500 after the undercover agent told Wright he needed more time to prepare for the job.

Wright also gave the agent a tour of the restaurant and assisted in planning the arson by providing a ladder for the undercover agent and discussing various tactics to ensure the planned arson would be a success.

In October 2017, the FBI executed a search warrant at Fat Boyz Grill and interviewed Wright, who confessed to hiring the undercover agent to burn down the restaurant.

The next day, the informant reported to the FBI that Wright had told the informant that the FBI had approached Wright and that Wright requested the informant’s assistance in making the undercover agent “go away,” according to court documents.

The staged assault

Wright also attempted to hatch a plot with the informant to stage an assault on Wright to make the FBI drop the case against him.

Weeks before he was initially arrested and after the search warrant, Wright reportedly told the informant how much it would cost to “get my ass beat,” according to a previous story by the Daily Press.

"(A)nd it needs to happen quickly, though. Beat to the point where I have memory loss, all the rest of the stuff, they have to let me go ... I have a good-ass attorney,” Wright said during a recorded conversation.

As the heat on Wright intensified, the mayor pro tem appeared to grow more desperate, purportedly telling an FBI agent that he had put a shotgun in his mouth.

According to a sworn FBI affidavit, Wright believed a planned attack that would cause memory loss could shield him from pending criminal charges.

What am I supposed to do?" he reportedly told an FBI informant with a lengthy criminal history dating back to 1995. "I am still underneath this federal bull [expletive]."

The planned assault on Wright would take place outside his restaurant in the predawn hours; the assault needed to show signs of a robbery; and "(t)hey gotta hit me in the head."

"I am going to lose at least three months of memory or more," Wright told the informant, according to the affidavit.

But might a staged assault be dangerous?

"I am not asking you to kill me," Wright responded. "I am not asking you to beat me within an inch of my life."

On November 3, 2017, four days before he would be arrested, a San Bernardino County Sheriff's deputy and SBC Fire personnel responded to the restaurant.

Wright was found lying near a barbecue in the parking lot without injuries.

He'd tell authorities his assailant tried to steal an audio recording device on him, now broken, which agents provided to record conversations "in furtherance of FBI's public corruption investigation in Adelanto," the affidavit said.

The suspect was a taller man who hit Wright over the right eye multiple times with an unknown object, he told an FBI agent who requested, through the deputy, to come to the scene.

At then St. Joseph Health, St. Mary hospital in Apple Valley, a somber Wright sat on a hospital bed in a hallway where he didn't appear to be getting treated. He didn't look an agent in the eye, spoke quietly, and took longer than usual to answer questions.

He told the agent he had been lying on the ground for two to three hours in the cold before help arrived at 7 a.m. and wondered why FBI surveillance teams didn't stop to intervene, although agents said there were none in the area at the time.

He was also robbed of $2,000 to $3,000 cash out of his pocket, according to the affidavit. He always paid his employees in cash, he told an agent, and he routinely kept significant quantities of it around — apparently a habit he had learned from his mother.

Wright has told agents he did not accept a $10,000 cash bribe in return for political favor.

The FBI investigated the matter, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean D. Peterson, Chief of the Riverside Branch Office, prosecuting the case.

Daily Press reporter Rene Ray De La Cruz may be reached at 760-951-6227 or RDeLaCruz@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DP_ReneDeLaCruz.

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Former Adelanto Mayor Pro Tem sentenced to 5-years in federal prison