The daughter of President Barack Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright is allegedly in more trouble with the law in the aftermath of her conviction last year on charges of money laundering, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.
Jeri L. Wright, 49, of Hazel Crest, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, has been accused of drawing 13 payments totaling $8,192 from a temporary-staffing agency “for work she never performed” for a plastics factory in Franklin, Ind., writes the Sun-Times. U.S. Probation Officer Eric W. Fox said in court filings, according to the news outlet, that Wright “committed theft” by accepting the payments, which he said were authorized by a since-fired plant manager now under investigation for “making fraudulent credit card charges and hiring several” ghost payrollers.
Neither Wright nor the manager has been charged. But prosecutors say that Wright’s alleged theft violates the terms of her bail and are asking U.S. District Judge Sue E. Myerscough to revoke it, the Sun-Times writes.
Last year Wright was found guilty of money laundering and of lying to federal investigators and a grand jury after being involved in a $1.25 million state-grant fraud scheme designed by former Country Club Hills Police Chief Regina Evans, according to the report. Wright has been free on bail while awaiting sentencing for that conviction.
Wright’s lawyer, Victor P. Henderson, said in a court filing Thursday night that “if there were probable cause that Ms. Wright had done something illegal, she would have been arrested” and that “these theft allegations are only in the investigative stage,” the Sun-Times writes.
Wright’s father is the retired senior pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ whose preaching flared up as a problem during Obama’s first presidential campaign. The pastor was not part of the case involving his daughter.
Read more at the Chicago Sun-Times.