Miami doctor accused of hate crime insists she was the real victim and target of slur
The Miami Springs doctor accused of attacking a Hispanic man at a Hialeah Publix denies using any racial slurs — and insists she was the one victimized after the customer called her a Spanish vulgarity.
Dr. Jennifer Wright, speaking for the first time publicly, told the Miami Herald this week that she was defending herself when she got into an altercation with customer Roger Salvo in the supermarket parking lot.
“What I’d like to make clear is that none of things you’ve read about me or heard about me are true,” Wright said in a Zoom interview. “I was the actual victim that day. I went to Publix to buy my daughter’s 18th birthday cake and I was called a puta in line by a man who was much bigger than me, younger than me and taller than me. Everybody in Miami knows what puta means. I was threatened and I had to call 911.”
Puta means “whore” in Spanish.
Wright spoke more than two months after she was arrested in a case that drew nationwide media attention, particularly because of the political undercurrents of the allegations. Wright, 59, works as an anesthesiologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center and says she has been unable to see patients since the arrest.
“This is not a hate crime,” said her lawyer, Carlos Gonzalez. “The version of events being pushed by the Hialeah police department and the state attorneys’ office is absolutely inaccurate.”
The arrest stemmed from an incident on Jan. 20 at a Publix in Hialeah, when Salvo, who is Hispanic, said Wright got too close to her in line. Wright began mumbling curses at him when he asked her to social distance, he claimed.
A Hialeah police report said that Wright, in the parking lot, accosted him, calling him a “spic,” which is a slur for Hispanics, and said “we should have gotten rid of you when we could.” She also said, “This is not going to be Biden’s America, this is my America” and “we should have burned it all,” the report said.
Salvo also alleged that Wright scratched his car, punched him when he tried to call 911 and tried to stomp on his phone when it fell to the ground, police said. Wright eventually fled in a Jeep Wrangler.
Wright has been an ardent public supporter of former President Donald Trump. Biden was inaugurated on the same day as the incident.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office charged Wright on charges of criminal mischief with prejudice, tampering with a witness and battery with prejudice, a “hate crime” enhancement that upgraded the charge to a felony. An independent witness corroborated Salvo’s version of events, authorities said.
“It is sad that in such a diverse, multi-ethnic community like Miami-Dade County, Covid precautions can trigger such alleged outbursts of ethnic hate. Hate crimes are always meant to demean and intimidate their intended targets,” State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle said in a press release in March. “I am proud that this victim would not be terrified into silence, allowing my Hate Crimes prosecutors to bring this case before our criminal courts.”
Gonzalez, in an interview and a court filing this week, said Salvo was “the aggressor” and cast doubt on the “so-called independent witness who seems to have near-supernatural powers of observation.”
The defense says that Wright was wearing a mask in line and after Salvo called her a “puta” in line, he was “lingering” in the parking lot afterward. Wright claims she only walked by and “told him she knew what the word ‘puta’ meant. Dr. Wright merely wanted to stand up for herself and set an example for other women. Unfortunately, she misjudged Salvo’s reaction,” according to the court filing.
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Wright claims it was Salvo who “clenched his fist and brought it to within inches of Dr. Wright’s face” and later “appeared to take another swing at her.”
“Instinctively, Dr. Wright raised her hand in self-defense. When their hands touched, both dropped their phones,” Gonzalez wrote, who added the doctor called 911 and fled. She also denies keying his car.
The State Attorney’s Office declined to comment on Gonzalez’s court filing, which seeks to compel prosecutors to turn over any additional evidence in the case. So far, the defense says, only a brief video surveillance clip of the two inside the Publix has been released.
Wright made only brief comments during a Zoom interview with her attorneys, Gonzalez and Ignacio Alvarez. Gonzalez also criticized Fernández Rundle for the press release. “I think the State Attorney is the one who made this case political,” he said.
Wright did, however, say that her and her family’s life has been upended because of the media coverage.
“My family has been terrorized. We’ve had people at my doorstep nightly putting things in my mailbox, leaving packages at my door, throwing dead animals in my pool,” Wright said. “It’s been horrific.”
Wright declined to say what was in the packages. She added: “I really look forward to a day in court.”
