The daughter of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who was US President Barack Obama's pastor for 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's south side, was sent to jail Monday after violating bail terms.
Jeri L. Wright (49) was left free through a deal while waiting to be sentenced for charges of money laundering, reports the Chicago Sun Times, but it was ruled that she likely committed a separate crime of theft while on bail violating her terms, and leading to her detention.
Last March during a trial over her part in a state grant fraud, Wright was found guilty of money-laundering, as well as lying to federal investigators and to a grand jury.
According to prosecutors, even while she was on trial for that case, Wright was involved in another scheme of ghost payrolling, through which she got 13 payments of $8,192 total during a period from last February to last May. The payments were from a temporary staffing agency for work "she never performed" at a plastics factory in Indiana, according to prosecutors.
The payments were allegedly authorized by a plant manager who is being investigated for "making fraudulent credit card charges and hiring several" ghost payrollers, and who has been fired since.
In the grant-fraud case on which Wright was already on bail, she stole up to $11,000 of state money and used part of the cash to pay for a car loan, later lying to authorities and a grand jury about the theft. Wright is to be sentenced for the grant-fraud case on March 20.
Wright's father, Jeremiah, was put in the spotlight during Obama's 2008 election campaign when it was revealed that he had made numerous blatant statements against America, gaining infamy from a video showing him saying "G-d damn America."
He also said the US brought the 9/11 attacks on itself due to American "terrorism," and has made openly anti-Semitic statements claiming Jews took away his influence over Obama.
Obama claimed that in the 20 years he attended Wright's church he didn't hear the numerous radical statements Wright made, which were revealed in various videos.