Car theft defendant Wright asks to change plea

An attorney for RTS Towing owner Randal Wright filed a motion Tuesday to withdraw his no-contest plea in a bizarre auto theft case.

Meanwhile, his wife, Karen Rene Wright, mysteriously disappeared in Mexico one year ago this week -- and members of her family say they're still waiting for answers.

Wright is accused of unlawfully taking a black Mercedes Benz G55 from a Fresno dealership in December 2008. Prosecutors believe Wright had been leasing the car since April 2007, but was behind on his payments and returned it to the dealer.

But the car later went missing from the dealership, only to turn up in April 2009 in San Felipe, Mexico, at a condo managed by Wright's girlfriend. The car is now in the custody of the Merced County Sheriff's Department.

In August, Wright pleaded no contest to felony charges of embezzlement and taking a car without consent. He was scheduled Tuesday to be sentenced to up to six months in jail in that case. However, Wright's attorney, Tom Gillis, filed a motion, asking Judge Brian McCabe to set aside that plea.

McCabe set an April 6 court date to decide whether to accept the motion. According to court documents, Wright contends he misunderstood the no-contest plea, saying he was impaired by prescription pain medication and was being pressured to enter the plea by Tom Pfeiff, who was his attorney then.

Wright also claims in court documents he repeatedly tried to make arrangements with the dealership and the leasing company to return the car, to no avail.

Regardless, Gillis said his client has always denied the charges and never unlawfully took the car from the Fresno dealership. Gillis said "no jury in the world" would convict Wright of stealing a car that he'd already leased. "He's not guilty. I don't know how he entered the (no contest) plea. It was very bad," Gillis said.

Despite Wright's claims, prosecutors have said they have ample evidence to convict him, even if the judge accepts the motion to dismiss his no-contest plea. "I'm confident that we could prove this case beyond reasonable doubt," said Deputy District Attorney Steven Slocum, prosecutor in the case.

Pfeiff, reached by telephone Tuesday, said he couldn't comment on Wright's claims that he was pressured into entering a no-contest plea, citing attorney privilege.

Some of the evidence against Wright includes a taped Feb. 13, 2009, phone conversation between him and Mercedes Benz Financial, where he explicitly denied picking up the car from the dealership. He also said he returned it in November 2008 and had never picked it back up, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said additional evidence included a taped phone call Wright placed from the Merced County Jail to his girlfriend in Mexico. During that phone call, Wright told the woman, "Black needs to take a permanent vacation," referring to the Mercedes.

In another strange twist to Randal Wright's legal saga, his 50-year-old wife, Karen Rene Wright, disappeared in San Felipe, Mexico, in early February 2009. The last time her family members heard from her was a phone call placed from Mexico on Feb. 9 last year. Merced County sheriff's detectives ruled the case a homicide in September.

Although no suspects have ever been named in Karen Wright's disappearance, Randal Wright remains a "person of interest" in the sheriff's department's investigation.

The couple, who'd been married 12 years, had owned two houses in San Felipe. Karen Wright had filed for divorce in October 2008.

Karen Wright's mother, Sonja Barnes, said her daughter suspected her husband may have been violating a court order prohibiting him from doing construction work on one of their homes until the divorce was final. The month of her disappearance, she'd gone to check on the house.