Isaac Wright Jr.

Isaac Wright Jr.
File:Isaac Wright Jr. (New Jersey Attorney).jpgIsaac Wright Jr. (New Jersey Attorney).jpg Isaac Wright Jr. (New Jersey Attorney).jpg
Born	(1961-08-17) August 17, 1961 Orlando, Florida, U.S.
🏫 Education	Thomas Edison State University (BS) St. Thomas University (JD)
💼 Occupation	Lawyer, Entrepreneur
Known for	Falsely accused, convicted and sentenced to life in prison inspiration for ABC TV series “For Life”
👩 Spouse(s)	Sunshine Wright (m.1982; div. 1991)
👶 Children	Tikealla S. Wright
👴 👵 Parents	Isaac Wright, Sr. (father) Sandra B. Wright (mother)
👪 Relatives	Quentin W. Wright (brother) Walter D. Wright (brother) Papotia R. Wright (brother) Sandra J. Laribo (sister) Steven J. Wright (brother)
🌐 Website	https://wrightfornyc2021.com/

Isaac Wright Jr. (born August 17, 1961) is an American attorney, consultant, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is best known for being falsely accused and convicted as a drug lord and sentenced to life in prison in 1991 facing 10 charges involving the sale of cocaine. His conviction was overturned in 1997 after litigation brought by him on the basis of police corruption during his investigation and the prosecutor’s knowing presentation of perjured testimony at his trial. His story is depicted in the television drama/series production "For Life", which premiered in 2020 on American Broadcasting Company. He was a candidate for mayor of New York City in the 2021 New York City mayoral election.

Early life and education

Wright was born on August 17, 1961, in Orlando, Florida, to Isaac Wright Sr. and Sandra B. Wright. Wright’s father was a career military man and Wright lived both in numerous cities of the U.S. and abroad. He attended Berkeley High School in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. Wright got his BS degree in Human services from Thomas Edison State University and JD degree from St. Thomas University School of Law.

Career

In the early 1980s Wright, while living in New York City along with his wife and daughter, appeared on the talent show Star Search for several weeks as a member of the dance trio Uptown Express. By the late 1980s he was a talent manager and owned an independent record label called X-Press Records while his wife, Sunshine, was a member of platinum selling group he co-founded called The Cover Girls, a pop and urban contemporary musical group.

Arrest and incarceration

In 1989, Isaac Wright Jr. was arrested and falsely charged with being the mastermind behind one of the largest drug distribution networks in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan areas. After being detained for almost two years, he was tried in 1991 and convicted under New Jersey's drug kingpin statute. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison on the kingpin conviction and a total of 72 years on convictions for other charges.

During his pre-trial detention, Wright taught himself the law, and although he was convicted after trying his own case, he continued to teach himself while serving a life sentence and appealing his conviction. Wright became a prison paralegal during his incarceration, and litigated cases for other inmates while fighting to overturn his own life sentence.

While still serving a life sentence, Wright formulated a new legal theory in a supplemental defense pro se brief he submitted in another prisoner’s case, State v. Alexander, 264 N.J.Super 102 (1993). In that legal brief, Wright attacked the jury instructions used by New Jersey in kingpin cases, reasoning that the instructions were contrary to the legislature’s intent on who should be charged and convicted as a drug Kingpin. Wright’s argument prevailed in Alexander and, when that decision was unsuccessfully appealed to the New Jersey Supreme Court by the State of New Jersey, Wright created new law. Wright then used that new law in a supplemental defense pro se brief to reverse his own kingpin conviction and life sentence in State v. Wright, 143 N.J. 580 (1996). While this triumph allowed Wright to successfully get rid of his life sentence, he remained in prison on numerous other convictions with sentences totalling over 70 years.

Wright remained in prison with decades to serve on those other sentences while waiting to be retried on the kingpin charge. With his direct appeal over, Wright motioned the trial court for Post Conviction Relief (PCR), claiming police and prosecutorial misconduct in his case. At this time, Wright was litigating a civil suit against the government while simultaneously litigating his criminal case. At his 1996 PCR hearing, during Wright's cross-examination of a veteran police detective James Dugan, the detective confessed to police misconduct in his case. Wright’s ultimate release came as a result of that cross-examination, as Dugan’s confession opened revelations of wide and systematic police and prosecutorial misconduct and cover-up in Wright’s case.

Somerset County Prosecutor, Nicholas L. Bissell Jr., who prosecuted Wright’s case, was identified as the orchestrator of the misconduct. Bissell directed police officers to falsify reports, while he personally dictated the false testimony of witnesses against Wright. Bissell further made secret deals with defense attorneys to have their clients lie to the jury that Wright was their drug boss and that they had pled guilty and were going to prison. No such prison time would be served.

Dugan pled guilty to official misconduct in order to escape prison. Wright’s trial judge, Michael Imbriani, who further concealed the secret deals through illegal sentencing schemes, was removed from the bench and incarcerated on unrelated theft charges. Bissell, after learning of Dugan’s confession on TV news, took flight with federal authorities in pursuit. As police were kicking in the door of his Las Vegas hotel room, Bissell committed suicide. Wright’s remaining convictions were vacated, and after spending over seven years in prison, he was immediately released and ultimately exonerated of all the charges. The Supreme Court of New Jersey affirmed that decision.

Post-release career

After his release from prison, Wright pursued law and graduated with the degree of Bachelors of Science in Human Services from Thomas Edison State University in 2002, entering law school in 2004 and graduating from St. Thomas University School of Law in 2007. After attaining admission to the bar in 2008, Wright spent the next nine years being investigated by the New Jersey Bar’s Committee on character before being granted admission to the bar by the New Jersey Supreme Court on September 27, 2017. On that date, Wright became the first and only person in the US history to have been sentenced to life in prison for being a drug kingpin, securing his own release and exoneration, and then being granted a license to practice law by the very court that condemned him. The ABC legal drama For Life is inspired by his life.

In 2017, Jackson signed a deal to produce a TV series For Life, inspired by Wright’s life. Hank Steinberg, Jackson and his G-Unit Film & Television production company, and Wright executive produced the series adaptation alongside Doug Robinson and Alison Greenspan via Robinson’s Doug Robinson Productions. In June 2020, the series was renewed for a second season which premiered on November 18, 2020. As of 2021, Wright is an attorney at a full-service law firm Hunt, Hamlin & Ridley, located in Newark, New Jersey.

In addition to practicing law, Wright has parleyed alliances and relationships with some of the most prolific international players and serial entrepreneurs in the world of trade and private finance, including His Highness, Sheikh Butti bin Suhail Al Maktoum, a member of Dubai’s Ruling Family. He has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for investments in infrastructure and energy in developing countries from solar farms in Mexico to modular refineries in Nigeria. The ABC legal drama For Life is inspired by his life. In April 2021, Wright became a major shareholder in RMST Holdings, an entity with subsidiaries and associate companies licensed to sell securities and of which have over $1 billion dollars in assets under management. In September 2021 Wright, on behalf of RMST holdings, signed a multi-million dollar deal with South Florida based auto finance company Atlantic Acceptance Corporation to market millions of dollars in secured mid, near and prime tier auto loans, enabling dealers and finance companies across the country to increase their market share.

Politics

In December 2020, Wright announced that he would run for mayor of New York City as a Democrat. He stated that housing, economy, criminal justice and police reform would be the centerpieces of his campaign, but that he would also focus on taxes, school desegregation, homelessness, and transit issues. Shortly after Wright announced his candidacy, rapper 50 Cent said of Wright in a tweet that "He is the real deal. We need people like him."

Legacy

In State v. Alexander, 136 N.J. 563 (1994), Wright made a new law, when submitting a pro se supplemental brief on behalf of Alexander challenging the New Jersey’s jury instructions governing the kingpin statute. The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the instructions allowed for convictions of people who were not kingpins, contrary to legislative intent. In 1997, Wright became the only person in the history of American Jurisprudence to be convicted as a drug kingpin, given a life sentence and ultimately winning his freedom by first creating new law that vacated his life sentence and then getting a police officer to confess on the stand to misconduct that vacated 70 years on the remaining convictions and resulted in the case against him being dismissed. In Wright v. State of New Jersey, 169 N.J. 422 (2001) the New Jersey Supreme Court changed century-old legal precedence which prohibited the State from being liable for county prosecutor’s misconduct. In doing so, the Supreme Court ruled that Wright can maintain an action against the State of New Jersey for the prosecutorial misconduct of Nicholas L. Bissell, Jr. in his case. In 2006 the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, Law Division, created a new section within the Division called the Wright Litigation. The Wright Litigation section was mandated by Wright v. State, 169 N.J. 422 (2001) and is organized to investigate and/or defend misconduct claims and lawsuits against prosecutors and police. In 2007 Saint Thomas University School of Law renamed their cafeteria the Isaac Wright Jr, Café. In 2017, Wright became the Executive Producer and inspiration for the ABC TV series entitled “For Life.” In State v. Bell, 236 N.J. 631 (2019), Wright was granted leave to appeal the trial court’s denial of his request to dismiss the indictment. The appeal involved a question of first impression in the State of New Jersey (i.e., whether the prosecutor must instruct the grand jury on a lesser degree crime upon the grand jury’s request). The Court, for the first time, required that prosecutors instruct grand juries on lesser included offenses when requested.

External links

• Official website

References

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