Sherra Wright gets new counsel
Lawyers for Sherra Wright, Steve Farese Jr. and Blake Ballin, filed a motion Wednesday to withdraw their representation, citing in court a deteriorating relationship between them and their client.
Criminal Court Judge Lee Coffee has appointed Memphis attorney Juni Ganguli to represent Wright. Co-counsel on the case will be Laurie Hall.
“There are rules of ethics that govern what has transpired here and all that we can ethically say pursuant to the rules is that the relationship between us and the client had deteriorated to a point where we couldn’t effectively represent her. We owed an ethical duty to her to file a motion to withdraw,” Farese said outside Coffee’s courtroom.
More inside
Who is Juni Ganguli?
Wright and co-defendant Billy Ray Turner are charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder in the 2010 death of her ex-husband and NBA star Lorenzen Wright.
Lorenzen Wright’s decomposing body was found in July 2010, days after he was reported missing.
Wright and Turner were not arrested until December 2017. He was apprehended in a Collierville convenience store and she was extradited from Riverside, California.
In May, Wright’s bond was set a $20 million, and she remains in custody. Turner is also in jail on a $15 million bond. Both have pleaded not guilty, and the state will not seek the death penalty.
This new development came in what was expected to be a routine report hearing on how the two sides in this case were progressing.
However, on Wednesday morning, Ballin and Farese submitted to Coffee the motion to withdraw.
Ganguli said he was asked shortly before court began Wednesday morning to represent Wright.
His team has represented death penalty and first-degree murder cases before and is prepared to work with Wright.
“I plan to tell her the truth. And I’m sure Mr. Ballin and Mr. Farese told her the truth at every stage. In that respect it’s not going to be any different. I don’t sugarcoat things for my clients. I tell them the absolute blunt truth. And Laurie is also a very good lawyer. She knows what she’s doing. So we’re both very excited about working on the case,” Ganguli said.
He admits to knowing only what has been reported in the news, which includes the details about Jimmie Martin, Sherra Wright’s cousin and a self-proclaimed co-conspirator in the killing. In 2016, Martin identified for investigators the Mississippi lake where the murder weapon was discovered and explained the plot to kill Lorenzen Wright that included a failed attempt in Atlanta in April 2010.
Martin is serving a 20-year sentence for killing his girlfriend.
“We know that the star witness, who’s been convicted of second-degree murder, who was out of custody when this killing happened, happened to know where the gun was,” Ganguli said. “So, that’s what I know.”
For the prosecution, this is yet another development.
“There’s twists and turns in every case. This is one that’s had more than its share of twists and turns over the last seven years. I’m sure there will be more twists and turns. This is just part of the process to make sure everybody is represented fairly and to do it right,” said Paul Hagerman, assistant district attorney.
Before announcing Ganguli’s appointment in court, Coffee asked Wright if she could afford to hire an attorney “I need to talk to my family,” she said. However, Coffee reminded Wright that she claimed to be indigent when the court appointed an investigator for her case and that he could not allow her to “sit in jail” without a lawyer.
Coffiee also advised her to work with Ganguli because he would not appoint another lawyer for her.
And, he said this switch will delay the trial, which is expected to be held in 2019. Turner’s report hearing occurred as planned.
Both he and Wright will return to court Aug. 22.
Lorenzen Wright’s killing is one of the most high-profile unsolved mysteries in Memphis history.
He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School, played basketball at the University of Memphis and spent 13 years in the NBA, including a stint with the Memphis Grizzlies. While in the NBA he earned an estimated $50 million.
He and Sherra Wright were high school sweethearts, were married for 13 years, had seven children and buried a young daughter.
Lorenzen Wright was visiting from Atlanta when he was reported missing on July 18, 2010. His badly decomposed body was found nine days later in a field in southeast Memphis near the TPC Southwind golf course.
Lorenzen Wright made a 911 call seconds before he was shot, but the call went to Germantown. Although the 911 operator heard multiple gunshots, it was days before the call was reported.
An autopsy showed Lorenzen Wright was shot in the head, chest and forearm.
Despite rewards offered through Crime Stoppers and pleas from the family, the case remained cold for years until a tip in 2016 lead to the discovery of the murder weapon in a lake in Walnut, Mississippi.
The case was featured on ‘48 Hours’
The crime and justice program “48 Hours” aired a special on the Lorenzen Wright murder case on CBS.