Former Adelanto councilman Jermaine Wright found guilty of attempted arson, accepting bribe

Former Adelanto Mayor Pro Tem Jermaine Wright in 2017. Wright was found guilty by a federal jury of accepting a $10,000 bribe and attempted arson on Wednesday, June 22, 2022.

A former Adelanto councilman has been found guilty by a jury of accepting a $10,000 bribe for his political influence and hiring a man to burn down his restaurant to collect the insurance money.

The jury delivered guilty verdicts for Jermaine Wright, 46, on Wednesday for bribery of programs receiving federal funds and for attempted arson of a building affecting interstate commerce.

Wright — the city’s mayor pro tem in 2017 — now faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for the arson, but a judge could sentence the 46-year-old to up to 30 years in federal prison for both crimes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

U.S. District Judge Jesus G. Bernal will decide sentencing at a Sept. 12 hearing. The Daily Press has reached out to Wright’s attorney.

The verdicts come at the end of a six-day trial and more than four years after Wright was initially arrested in November 2017 amid a corruption probe into Adelanto by the federal investigators, which began earlier that year.

Conversations began being recorded that June when an informant working with law enforcement introduced Wright to a man who said he wanted to use property outside the city’s “green zone,” which is designated for marijuana businesses.

Unbeknownst to Wright, the man was an undercover FBI agent and wanted Wright’s help in expanding the area where a marijuana business would be permitted.

“Wright told the informant that the undercover agent would need an ‘exemption’ that would allow the undercover operative to operate a marijuana transportation business and that if the undercover agent wanted the exemption, then Wright wanted his ‘ten,’” the DOJ said.

At a meeting in October 2017, Wright pocketed the $10,000 cash bribe from the undercover agent and said he would help with code enforcement and votes on the council.

For further assistance in curtailing code enforcement, Wright said he would need $2,000 every time he interceded.

The same year in August, Wright asked the informant’s assistance in finding someone to burn down Fat Boyz Grill, the restaurant he owned in the city.

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An affidavit stated Wright wanted the fire to look like an accident, an electrical problem, so he could collect $300,000 in insurance money.

A second undercover FBI agent, acting as the “electrician,” met with Wright who gave him a tour of the restaurant and assisted in planning the arson, providing a ladder and noting sprinkler systems, outlets, and the fire station down the street.

“From the time (the fire) starts to the time they get here, it’s probably about five minutes,” Wright said, according to the affidavit.

Former Adelanto Mayor Pro Tem Jermaine Wright prepares a burger at his restaurant, Fat Boyz Grill, in 2016. Wright was found guilty of attempted arson of the restaurant on Wednesday, June 22, 2022, in addition to accepting a bribe.

Authorities said Wright later paid the agent $1,500 for the job.

FBI agents executed a search warrant at the restaurant off Highway 395 in October 2017, where Wright reportedly confessed to hiring the supposed arsonist.

After the raid, the informant reported to the agency that Wright had asked the informant’s help in “making the undercover agent ‘go away,’” federal officials said.

The desperation didn’t stop there, however, the Daily Press reported.

Weeks before he was initially arrested and after the search warrant, he reportedly told the informant how much it would cost to “get my ass beat.”

“(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.

The staged assault, according to an affidavit, involved a rat placed next to him to infer someone had been angered he had talked to the FBI and $500 or $600 as compensation to the paid attacker.

On Nov. 3, 2017, four days before he would be arrested, Wright was found by emergency personnel lying outside his restaurant but with no visible injuries.

He gave an FBI agent a description of an attacker and said he was robbed but wouldn’t look the agent in the eye during an interview at a local hospital.

Federal officials said they learned the “circumstances of the alleged assault were consistent with the staged assault that Wright discussed with the informant.”

Wright is not Adelanto’s only former elected official charged with corruption-related crimes.

Mayor Rich Kerr was arrested in August 2021 after an indictment accused him of accepting close to $60,000 in bribes and kickbacks in exchange for favorable decisions concerning commercial marijuana.

Kerr has pleaded not guilty to the charges of wire fraud and bribery. His case is still moving through the court process, and a possible trial date has not been set yet.

Daily Press

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Daily Press reporter Martin Estacio may be reached at 760-955-5358 or MEstacio@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DP_mestacio.

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Former Adelanto councilman Jermaine Wright guilty of taking a bribe